Command Protocol
by MilleniaMaster
Summary: The machines will rise again... (Detailed summary inside.) *Update at the end of chapter 27. Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. Please don't kill me*
1. A Mercenary at the Gates Pt 1

Several months after the battle against Hades, Aloy is left struggling to find her next step forward. The sub-functions of Gaia are scattered throughout the world, and to make things even more complicated, the Derangement is accelerating, making road travel almost impossible. But a battle outside the gates of the Embrace aided by a single mercenary sets her on a clear path, and the events that follow will change her life forever…

 **A Mercenary at the Gates Pt. 1**

-Several months after the battle at the Spire, Aloy remains indecisive and confused about her next step forward. Varl offers her a distraction…

* * *

The sounds of nature playing in the background are a familiar tune that could be heard throughout the Embrace. Birds tweet their songs of the early afternoon to each other from high atop the trees as small mammals rummage in the grasses. A soft breeze is billowing in from the east, bringing down a slight chill from the mountains that surround the valley, even though summer is just around the corner. The warmer weather brings out the colour of the Embrace and makes it all look so vibrant and peaceful.

Yet Aloy still feels restless.

She lays on her belly on top of a hill in a far corner of the valley, where almost practically nobody could bother her. She ran her hands through her hair and exhaled slowly, before tugging at the blades of grass in front of her in bitter boredom.

It had been three months since the battle at the Spire and the termination of Hades. There was half a city to clean up and repair afterwards, but Aloy hadn't stuck around. Despite knowing that the attack was ultimately because of her, she left Meridian behind and prepared to travel far.

Because _her_ mission wasn't done. Not yet.

In her journey to stop the AI Hades, Aloy discovered that several other AIs of similar nature and design had been let loose and escaped into the vast unknown. The subordinate functions that all contributed to the 'reconstruction' of the planet were now independent entities with their own agendas. Hades was just the first of many problems to deal with.

And that was where her dilemma began. Aloy didn't have a clue as to where to begin her search. It wasn't like hunting a machine in the wilds, following an unsuspecting target through the brush of a thick jungle or tracking footprints made visible by the Focus, cutting through the snow covered mountains. She had spent years training and honing her skills to fight a materialistic animate object. She didn't know how to track a thinking program.

The discovery of CYAN and the Epsilon Cauldron was her best lead. Hephaestus didn't leave a traceable signal when it tried to take control of Cyan's systems, but Aloy had gained a valuable insight to its plans. New machines, designed to attack humans. It was the prelude to something big, she knew it. It had to be. But at this point in time Aloy didn't know where to start searching, or _how_. Locating an artificial intelligence system wasn't her field of expertise.

All she could do for now was prepare and keep an eye on the local machines. She gathered parts from her kills and upgraded her weapons with to the best of her crafting abilities and keep her skills sharp by training at the local hunting grounds. She also kept herself busy by helping the Nora tribe rebuild their home.

She sort of did it out of obligation. It was Rost's wish that she join the tribe and stand for them for when they needed her, even when she didn't need them. And it wasn't fair to the few people she _did_ like. Teersa, Varl, Teb… being revered as the Anointed of the tribe frustrated her immensely, especially after treating her like a curse for most of her life, but they needed help. Their numbers were dwindling after the vicious attack by the Eclipse. They needed someone to look up to, a source of hope after everything they had gone through. A lesson that, ironically, a Carja priest had taught her. Aloy fitted that role begrudgingly.

But today she finds herself at a stalemate. She's itching to begin this new quest, but torn as to where to begin. The Cradle facility that was worshipped by the Nora as All Mother might hold some clues – if she searches it thoroughly. She had been in and out of the bunker multiple times to 'confer' with the goddess – or at least that's what she told the matriarchs every time she went into the bunker. But it was more specifically just trying to learn more about the ancient technology that could give birth to human beings and search for clues as to where Eleuthia could be. That search quickly came up fruitless.

She could also make the trip to the Cut and talk to CYAN again, ask it more questions regarding its purpose. The AI wasn't part of the terraforming system, but it was another AI built by the Old Ones, designed to maintain the volcanic activity underneath the Cut. A super volcano, right under their feet. The Epsilon Cauldron was built right on top of it to turn all that energy into smelting power and forging for the cauldron. It was all so fascinating, but it had nothing to do with her quest.

So until Aloy learns what her next move is, here she lopes around.

"If only I knew where to start," she mumbles to herself. "Tracking an AI seems a lot more complicated than I thought."

She turns her gaze to the left to the metal mass beside her.

"Do you have any ideas?"

The Sawtooth does not respond.

"I didn't think so…"

The machine had been under her control for several days now. It would follow her everywhere unless commanded just like a Strider. It's bulk meant it couldn't enter the Cradle with her, or much less get past the small entrance at the mouth of the cave, so it usually sat still outside the village gates, perfectly still. The Nora never appeared the docile machine, in fact they usually always kept at least a ten-foot distance whenever they passed by on the road. Aloy appreciated the distance, and grew so fond of it that she marked it as hers by tying a long length of fabric around its neck, the same colour as her small scarf, just so that the Nora knew not to shoot at it.

But the repellent machine didn't work on everyone.

The sound of dirt kicking up to her right, Aloy finds a particular Nora brave scramble up the cliff to meet her. He regards the Sawtooth hesitantly for a moment before his eyes land on her.

"This is a poor place for sentry duty," Varl greets.

"Who said I was on sentry duty? I thought I was picking berries," Aloy snips, reaching for a plant in front of her and pulling a few berries from it. They were small and overripe, poor pickings for any sort of recipe. Varl chuckles and sits down cross-legged beside her.

"You know solidarity doesn't do you any good."

"Solidarity helps me _think_ , Varl. I can't listen to All Mother's wishes with all the Nora worshipping me," Aloy replies with heavy sarcasm.

"Still performing tasks for the one goddess?" he asks.

"The goddess' work is never done, even with the great Metal Devil slain," she responds quickly.

"What exactly are you tasked with doing that involves sitting on top of the cliffs by yourself?" Varl says and glances over at the bigger machine again. "With a Sawtooth on guard?"

Aloy sighs in exaggeration. This was just the kind of thing she was hoping to avoid. But because this is Varl, she feels more inclined to explain. He had already expressed once that maybe someday, he wished to learn the _truth_ behind the goddess and what the lands beyond their Sacred Lands held. She desired so much to share her secrets with someone, but it was hard to work around everyone's stable faith.

"If you must know, All Mother was kind of… vague, when she said she wanted me to help her. Stopping Hades at the Spire was clear, but she hasn't given me any direction since," Aloy explains. There's a few seconds of silence as Varl thinks silently over her dilemma before speaking .

"Have you ever thought that this is what she wanted you to do? To help the tribe heal?"

"But Varl, it's been three months! The tribe can survive without me, now," Aloy decides to stand up, finding that the impatient energy inside her – growing within her for the past few weeks – is almost too much. "The gates are rebuilt, the braves are well-trained. I know there's more danger out there, but I don't know where to start or what signs to look for," she hisses with frustration. Her arms are right at her sides and her hands balled into fists. She waves her arm towards the dead titan machine looming on the mountains, towards Mother's Watch, where the Cradle facility is buried. "I could try and ask her for a little help, but I'm afraid she isn't going to say much."

"Why would you think that? What did she say last time?" Varl asks, joining her in standing up.

Aloy sighs and says, "In you, all things are possible." She turns towards Varl, who has a comically puzzled look on his face. "Those were her last words. And she hasn't spoken to me since."

He gives her a shrug. "Well at least she's encouraging, and she's right. You saved the whole tribe from extinction and saved the world right after that without missing a step. Nobody here can claim to have done something like that."

Aloy huffs and smiles only a little. "Are you trying to flatter me or encourage me?"

Varl laughs nervously. "Look, I think you've been thinking a little too hard about these tasks. Maybe you need to take your mind off them for a while. Come join me on guard duty for a bit. It might jog your thoughts around and help you figure it out."

The huntress rests her hands on her hips and sighs. "I guess you're right. A little wayward footing might help."

"That's the spirit. Come, I'll show you where you'll be posted."

… … …

Being stationed on guard duty has the opposite affect that Aloy was hoping for.

Her station is on top of one of the new towers constructed by the braves near the cliffs of the northern gate, with her loyal machine companion sitting patiently at the bottom for her. There were four towers in total, and she was in the outer most tower, meaning if there was danger approaching, she would see it first.

Her vantage is great. She can see all the way to the ruins of Devils Thirst in one direction and all the way to the southern gate the other way. The path below circles around her tower the long way around, so she has plenty of time to warn the braves stationed at the gates if there was ever a threat approaching. All she has to do is light the pit in the middle of the platform and climb down to join the others. The only downside to this is that Aloy is the only one there, and she can't go anywhere until the sun touches the mountains when her shift is over. She can't do anything but watch and think.

She plays around with her Focus to keep herself busy, going through all the files she has stored in the little device. Those she received from the Zero Dawn facility and those she found in the wild around ruins. She notices several subjects tended to repeat themselves across different recordings or text. While half of it she doesn't understand – like what was Metallurgic? She understood that it was responsible for a poison of some sort. And what exactly was Far Zenith? Some group of rich people building a flying machine in space, from what she can understand. Piecing together these unique fragments of information serves as a good pass time and provides a little satisfaction, her knowledge about the Old Ones' world growing little by little.

A loud boom echoes in the distance, prompting Aloy to lift her head.

A plume of smoke starts rising in the distance but she doesn't see the cause of it. She remains still and waits for something to happen. She's suspicious of the reason; smoke like that doesn't arise out of the blue.

Sure enough a few screams echo shortly after. She spots two braves as they run into view, and even though they were far away, she can tell they are running from something. She waits a little longer so she can see if their assailant would appear after them.

It does. A machine, big and fast, jumps onto the road and chases after the braves. Within two pounces it's upon them and tears them down. Literally. Aloy can't see the blood, but she can tell by the way the machine takes one of the braves in its jaws and throws them aside like a doll, and then swats the other one into a boulder with a massive, armed claw, that neither of them had survived.

Aloy comes to her senses and turns to the pit. There is a piece of flint sitting on the edge of the large bowl where the kindling and wood logs sat. She picked it up and scrapes it against one of her metal braces, the sparks flying into the kindling. Instantly, the dry kindling lights and a small growing flame starts to spread.

With that job done, she grabs her rope and rappels down from the tower to join the braves at the gate.

* * *

So HOLY CRAP it's good to be writing again! I am excited and nervous at the same time because it's been so long since I've posted any fanfic work on a website. In fact it's been years. I wanted to make something good, and then this incredible video game came out and I decided this is a perfect opportunity. It's just so fascinating!

But first thing's first. Yes, my own original character is going to play a huge role in this fanfic. It's not centered on them, most chapters are from Aloy's perspective, but a few choice chapters will involve the other party's side of things.

Second, I'm trying my damnest to NOT make this a Mary Sue type. I've risked that in the past and I hate myself for it.

And third, this will absolutely wind up an Aloy/OC pairing. But this is tagged as a slow burn, and I mean slooooooooooow burn, like, maybe not even this story slow. heck, maybe not even the second. I just want to flesh out the details and reveal as much characteristics to my OC as possible before any romance happens. And yes, I am planning on writing that much.

All that said, I hope you guys enjoyed reading this. I started writing as soon as I requested an invitation to this site (about a month ago) so I have plenty to post. Almost ten chapters worth in fact, so I consider myself pretty ahead. As far as updates go, likely once a week, until the posting catches up to me. I work with the Word app on my Iphone 6, so I'm always writing something down. And I mean ALWAYS. So leave a maybe a comment? Constructive criticism is always welcome!

Until next week.

MM.


	2. A Mercenary at the Gates Pt 2

**A Mercenary at the Gates Pt.2**

Riding upon her overridden Sawtooth, Aloy navigates the rocky terrain along the elevated path at a breakneck pace, making her way to the northern gate. The machine had beaten her there already, and she could hear the sound of braves fighting with it. Or more like the screams of pain. They needed help.

Coming up to the last hill, she finds that more machines have joined the fight. A quick touch to her Focus reveals that there is nothing different about them, which is confusing. The device doesn't indicate them as corrupted or daemonic. They fight the Nora along with the new machine, Striders, Scrappers and Watchers. Why were they fighting alongside it? What made them fight?

That new machine is a different problem. It looks like a Sawtooth, but bigger, and its armour is bulky around its shoulders and back hunches. Its eyes glow bright red with a menacing anger unlike anything Aloy has seen in a machine before, and it pounces with amazing precision, sending a Nora brave flying _through_ the wall. She can't identify any weaknesses, but she grabs a fire arrow and shoots at the machine in hopes of distracting it.

It works almost too well. The machine glares up at her and charges. The cliffs are too high, but it still makes an impressive jump to try and reach her and her Sawtooth, sharp claws and metal teeth all bared, hungry for her flesh. As the Sawtooth growls defensively, Aloy grabs a hardpoint arrow and aims at one of its eyes.

Then something amazing happens. Just as she lets the arrow fly, the metal hide of the machine shifts. A plate with a red visor slides over the machine's lens', effectively blocking the arrow with nothing but a scratch left behind. It snarls at her and backs down.

"That's new," she retorts. The machine keeps an eye on her as she dismounts her ride and joins the braves up on the wall and continues pouncing around and dodging attacks as the braves on foot retreat.

"Keep them away from the wall! Use your fire arrows!"

Aloy looks over and sees Varl, with his spear in hand, commanding the braves with no hesitation and a booming voice. Normally, he would be on patrol out there somewhere in the Sacred Land or on guard at the central gate. He must have seen the fire signal she set off earlier. Good. She needs someone around who could watch her back. Varl was there at the battle for the Spire. He could handle himself in a fight.

Aloy takes a few arrows and has them join the volley that is assaulting the machines. Four out of five arrows found their mark in eyes or vital parts, severely wounding the now small army that had gathers in front of the gate. There were so many machines, however, that the attack didn't slow down.

"Where did these machines come from? And why are they attacking us?" Aloy speaks to herself. As the machines fight, she keeps track of the larger one, how it moves and how it attacks. It's fast for its size and looks like it can tear through a small village on its own, or even Mother's Heart. That's a frightening thought.

But she had handled worse.

"Can you keep them off me?" she says to Varl.

"What? You got a plan?"

She tilts her head towards the strange new machine. "The big one."

Varl takes a good long look at the machine as it dodges fire arrows and knew exactly what she was asking for. His cheeks puff out as he exhales and takes a firm grip of his spear.

"Ready when you are."

Aloy glances at her machine friend. It stares back at her, almost as if it is thinking the same thing. The three of them jump over the edge of the wall together and land on the ground in sync. Aloy wastes no time grabbing another arrow and downing an injured Scrapper in their way before they charge forward. Varl rushes ahead and chooses his ground in front of the machine. It must have looked daunting, but she is determined not to let him down. Aloy taps her Focus to scan the machine again for any weaknesses as her Sawtooth tackles it.

She is surprised to find _none_. There are no batteries, no canisters, not even a removable component that she can see. That would prove to be a problem. She would have to use tearblast arrows to remove the plating and make a vulnerable opening.

Her first shot almost misses. The machine is so much faster up close, but she manages to land a shot on its flank. A few plates rip from their hinges and a few sparks fly, staggering the beast. Varl sees his chance and pushes his spear to puncture deep into the wires and microfibre metal underneath. He has to move quickly because the machine doesn't stay dazed for long. He dives out of the way as he avoids a large paw from taking off his head. Her Sawtooth gets between them. Aloy fires another shot at its hind, which brings the machine's attention solely on her.

"Watch out!" Varl shouts, but Aloy knows how to avoid machine attacks. It was easy timing their leaps to her jumps, and this machine is no different. It's massive pounce towards her is predictable and she manages to escape to safety. Once she is on her feet, she whips around and shoots another quick tearblast arrow at its hind side.

The machine jumps back, but quickly turns toward the wall and leaps up onto its hind legs, almost matching the wall for height. It swipes at the braves up on the wall, sending chunks of wood and a few braves flying into the air.

Aloy fires two arrows at its back.

"Hey! It's me you want!" she shouts. The machine drops to all fours again and turns to face her.

"Target reaffirmed. Eliminate Elisabet Sobeck."

Aloy's heart almost stops and she remains frozen with the battle around her swirling in action as consequently, so is her head. She couldn't have imagined that. Did that machine really just speak? And did it just mention…

"What?" Aloy gasps, too confused and stunned with what just happened. The machine takes its chance and leaps at her, high enough to eclipse the sun.

She's shoved to the side before she can spur herself into action and lands with a hard thud, losing her bow. She looks up and Varl is above her, jabbing his spear at the machine so it would back away.

"You alright?" he asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she answers quickly, shaking her head of her stupor and grabs her bow before getting to her feet. "There's something different about that machine."

"I know. I've never seen anything like this either."

They step back as the machine fakes a lunge to force them towards the wall at their backs.

"It's not that. I heard it speak. It's looking for something," she explains. Varl takes a quick glance over his shoulder to look back at her.

"What does it want?"

Aloy already has a pretty good guess.

"To kill me…"

Varl turns back to the machine and tightens his grip on his spear. "Then let's make sure that doesn't happen."

They continue to pelt the machine with arrows and spear attacks. Meanwhile, the battle around them seems to be taking a turn. Most of the machines have sparks jumping out of them and metal scrap is littering the ground. A few machine corpses lay on the ground too. The Nora braves were winning their side of the fight. She directs her Sawtooth to start clean-up duty on the weaker machines.

Aloy strikes her target in the flank with another arrow and the machine staggers. A shower of sparks pour from its side where the arrow struck. Before Varl can get in a second strike, the machine jumps back and puts several feet between them, and then it starts to glow.

Not glow, but shine brilliantly with white light as the metal bulks on its body activate. Aloy has to shield her eyes. Varl does too. When the light dissipates, she squints and blinks a couple times. She finds the machine had changed.

White lightning arcs all across the machine's body. New armour plates had appeared out of thin air, and the wounds they had inflicted seemed to have disappeared. The machine roars with a renewed vigour that Aloy has never seen in a machine before.

"That's definitely new."

The machine pounces and is suddenly upon her within seconds. She dives out of the way just barely in time, but the machine turns and kicks her with the flat of its back feet and sends her flying.

Varl shouts her name and attempts to run to her aid, but the machine quickly cuts him off, tackling him with the bulk of its body. Then it turns back to her. Aloy is still reeling from the attack, but manages to touch her Focus to send a signal to her Sawtooth; priority safety target – her.

The Sawtooth leaps into action. It shoves the bigger machine aside and rakes its claws against its side, tearing away protective plating. The other machine retaliates quickly, toppling the Sawtooth over with a single swing. Before it can get up, the machine pins it down and clamps its jaws around the Sawtooth's neck.

 _Crunch._

For good measure, it then tears at the wires and rips the dead machine's head right off. Even with no blood, it's a horrific scene. Aloy has never seen a machine fight with such savagery.

It then turns back to her. Aloy grabs an arrow and fires at it as it leaps at her. It disorients it for a split second, allowing her to fall back and avoid being crushed, and she has to let go of her bow to do so. But when she looks up, the machine is above her, ready to tear her to shreds with its claws.

Something stops it. Aloy sees a flash of blue electricity wrap around the machine's head. The machine struggles to reach her, but the object of light is tugged on it until it falls on its back.

She follows the blue line up to a single man standing on the road behind the machine. The rope sparks in his hands but it didn't seem to bother him. He's clad in some heavy grey armour the likes of which she has never seen before.

As the man pulls his rope back, the machine gets to its feet. Its roar is loud enough to shake the ground, just before it charges at him. The man grabs a weapon strapped to his back: a maul of some kind.

"Leave them alone!" he shouts, just before he spins around, swinging his weapon to build up its momentum. It smashes into the machine's head, deflecting its lunge attack away from him. The machine skids across the ground as metal plates fly everywhere.

Aloy quickly scans the ground for her bow. When she finds it, she quickly nocks a fire arrow and turns back to aim at the machine. She's never seen someone fight a machine so close so fearlessly before. The man easily dodges attacks, swings his weapon expertly to knock off plates that protect the machine's hide. She fire at those vulnerable spots to inflict damage.

When the machine turns back to her, the man twists his weapon to attack with the sharp hook blade on the back of his maul. He digs it into the side of machine's head and yanks a plate free, bringing its attention back towards him.

"Over here!" he machine snarls at him and swings. The man dives out of the way and avoids a follow up attack by jumping off a rock. He twists again and hooks his weapon around the machine's jaw and uses it to climb up so he sits just behind the machine's head, now tearing metal plates away with his bare hand and yanking out wires. The machine fidgets and bucks, but he holds on.

Aloy finds Varl getting up from a patch of grass. At least he's been safe in the cover. She runs to his side.

"Are you alright?"

Varl shakes his head of dizziness. "I'm fine. What happened? Where's that machine?"

Aloy points to the machine that had attacked them, still jumping around with the human on its back.

"Who's that?" he asks.

"I don't know, but it looks like he's got things covered. Let's help the Nora," she quickly answers.

"Right."

Varl picks up his spear and they join the braves in defeating the other machines, the smaller targets that are much easier to deal with. With the aid of the braves they are defeated quickly.

It isn't long after that the bigger machine collapses, a large component from its head missing. The man on it looks unhurt, aside from a fine layer of dirt that covers him. He jumps off from his places and crouches down next to it, presumably to start picking parts.

"We should see to the wounded. The Watchers took out our scouts and the laser from the Scrappers burnt up the wall," Varl reports, as Aloy notices a few burnt lines along the wood logs that make up the wall. Some even caught fire and were now slowly burning the barrier away. "We should also talk to that man, thank him for helping us."

Aloy places her hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Leave that to me. You should help put out those fires."

Varl looks up at the flames and the braves struggling to put them out. There was no immediate water source which made it difficult to deal with. Boots and feather capes would be burned.

He finally nods to her and departs to go help. Aloy turns back to the downed machine and only takes a few steps before she Focus pings her.

"A signal? From where?" she asks herself quietly. And more importantly, why now of all times? She activates her Focus and quickly looks around her. There's nothing unusual around her, except for the machines they have defeated, that the one warrior had defeated on his own. That's where the signal is coming from. From him.

 _Unknown device detected? Wait…_

"A Focus," she realizes with unsteady shock. "He's wearing a Focus."

* * *

I'm so full of energy and giddiness right now cause I just bought a new truck and it's soooooo nice! I almost missed today's update cause I spent most of the day cruising around.

I'm a truck kinda guy.


	3. A Mercenary at the Gates Pt 3

**A Mercenary at the Gates Pt. 3**

"How did you do it?" the man mutters to himself, Aloy catching his words on the wind as she cautiously approaches him. "How did you transform?"

He searches the machine over, his hand skimming over the metal until he finds an ideal spot to start tearing apart wires with a knife. He strips away brackets, bolts, springs and the like until he finds what he was looking for: a peculiar device that is no bigger than the palm of his hand, hidden under armour plating, in pristine condition despite all the wounds inflicted on the machine. He turns it over, examines it at every angle, even prods it with his knife a few times.

"So this is how. But how does it work?" he murmurs. Aloy watches him from a distance. Whatever he's seeing, it was through his Focus and isn't popping up on her display. He tucks the device away in a small metal case strapped to his belt. It was hard to tell if he was satisfied with it or not with his helmet still on.

Aloy decides on a greeting. "You fought well, outlander. Not many people come all the way to the Nora gates to kill a machine like that."

The man looks up at her. "I tracked this machine here." He then stands up. His full height is a whole head taller than her, and imposingly so with his broadened shoulders. Or maybe it's just the armour. "I also happen to hunt machines like this for a living."

"Yeah, I can tell, with all that armour on you," Aloy quips. She wants to justify just how ridiculous the amount of armour he has on, but she doesn't. On every limb is a piece of metal, either forged from a smiths or scrapped from machines. His chest plate, for example, is forged, decorated with machine parts at the centre and either side, and laced across his chest is a thick belt strap. His knees, shins and forearms are also covered in machine parts, and draped down his right leg and back hip is a long piece of rough fabric that almost reaches the ground, decorated with metal plates, and his left leg is almost completely encased with fitted machine armour. The only vulnerable spot Aloy can see is his midriff, bare except for obvious under clothing.

"It's lighter than it looks," the man replies. He reaches up and takes his helmet off. Intriguingly, the plates that hold the face mask together slide back to reveal a mouth, eyes and nose. But with the helmet fully removed, Aloy finds a man with long raven hair swept to one side, and there's a closely shaven spot on the left side of his head, dyed red with a long braid bordering it. His eyes are a deep blue, a shade she has never seen before, and short facial hair that covers his jaw and around his lips. The profound red line of paint that crosses his left eyebrow and conjoins the red in his hair is intriguing.

"Name's Vale. Machine hunter, as you can tell," he greets with a neutral expression, but the tone of his voice suggests humbleness.

"I'm Aloy. I also hunt machines," she says with an equal tone. Vale's eyebrows scrunch together in confusion.

"Aloy? Are you sure it's not Elisabet Sobeck?"

Aloy can feel her blood shoot through her veins.

"Where did you hear that name?" she asks without skipping a beat.

"In some ruins, in a land far away from here, where I hail from. I found your image there. It had your name and your location. It seemed like a message," Vale explains. His face remained static, like he just hasn't stumbled upon her greatest secret.

Which, clearly, he was unaware that he _had_.

"What did the message say?"

"It said; Elisabet Sobeck, Alpha Prime," he relays.

Aloy exhales slowly and tries to understand what this man had heard, and it isn't hard. There were only a few select times where she had heard that phrase. But she didn't just hear it; she _spoke_ it.

It was at the battle of the Spire. She had to give her credentials as Elisabet to activate Alpha privileges and purge Hades. She hadn't realize that the message had been recorded. She didn't mean to. Then how…?

"I thought you were saying your own name, but I guess that's not the case?" he says. Aloy rests her hands on her hips.

"It's… complicated," she replies and looks the man in the eye. "Why are you here, Vale?"

Vale hooks his helmet to his belt and crosses his arms. "I want to stop the Derangement," he states. "Something tells me you can help with that."

She doesn't know how to react at first. It's the opportunity she's been waiting for for months. To stop the angry machines from becoming a threat to all humanity, this was it. In the form of a stranger who knew her, by _name_ , and had a _Focus_ , meaning he must have understand the world on some level. But of course this came to a tricky situation. His knowledge was bordering on personal matters and his real motives were unknown to her. But this was a chance she had to take. She couldn't sit and wait forever.

"I… can. At least I think," she finally tells him. "But there's some things we need to talk about first."

Vale nods. "I agree. I imagine you have as many questions for me as I do you. Can we meet somewhere and chat?"

It's Aloy's turn to nod. "There a hill to the north not far from here, inside of the Embrace. You can meet me there and we can talk. I'l let the Nora know you're welcome inside the gates with my permission."

"What? Are you the chieftain or something?"

"Not exactly, but they'll listen to me. I'll see you in a few hours, Vale," she says and turns and leaves back for the wall. She wishes she had said sooner. Vale seems like an interesting character. He had come a long way, so there is obviously some strong will and determination behind him. She wants to know more.

And most importantly, she wants to know how he was led here. To her.

… … …

Aloy later finds him sitting alone on top of the hill exactly where she had been sitting earlier that day, when Varl had found her. After helping the Nora braves snuff out the fires on the wall — which took the better part of the afternoon — and talking to Varl about their new visitor, Aloy left eagerly to meet him at their agreed designated spot.

The man is staring out at the vastness of the Embrace. The sun is dipping into the mountains, throwing the sky into an orange arrangement and the clouds into a fitting pink cotton flavour. Vale looks like he's swatting when she first spots him in the distance, but as she gets closer she realizes he is playing with his Focus. It reminds her how conscious she had to be when using hers. Now that she witnessed someone else using one, she was aware of just how silly it looked. She approaches him carefully so as not to disturb whatever he's doing.

"You could say hi, instead of just staring."

So much for that.

"You seemed like you were busy," Aloy admits, a little startled by his attentiveness. She swore she hadn't made a noise.

"Just organizing some files. I haven't had the chance to do that yet. Haven't had this thing for very long so I'm still getting used to it."

"And yet you knew I was coming."

"The Focus points it out," he explains.

"Strange. Mine doesn't do that."

Vale gets to his feet slowly and Aloy realizes something else different about his Focus. It doesn't look quite the same as hers. There are two protruding antennae that stretch just beyond the lobe of his ear, one orange and the other black, and the light that it made wasn't a blue circular shape. It was a bright green colour, arranged in a half circle of odd shapes hover just above his ear.

"Mine's different. It has some… modifications to it," he explains.

"Where did you get it?" Aloy asks.

"In some ruins, different from the one that I found your image in, and there were dozens of them, all untouched. I picked up a couple and played around with them a bit." Vale opens one of the three pouches on his belt. Aloy is amazed to discover at least half a dozen Focus devices tucked away, normal ones like hers. They all look perfectly fine and undamaged.

"You don't look happy," Vale blandly points out. It was true. Aloy didn't like that at all.

"Carrying so many devices like that with you. Are you sure that's such a smart thing to do? Do you even know what they're capable of?"

"Relax, no one has touched these devices but me, and I've only been experimenting. I only keep valuable data on the one I wear." Vale closes the pouch. "I bet you got a lot of questions for me."

She takes a deep breath.

"I do. First, why exactly did you come all this way to find me? I know this isn't the most conventional spot in the world; hardly anyone outside the Nora tribe comes this far, but if you came all this way, your reasons must be important," Aloy says, and Vale nods. "Secondly, how did you find my image in some ruins? I've never been farther than the edge of Carja territory."

The man nods and his gaze drifts away from her for a moment and she comes to understand that he's contemplating how to answer her questions. Good, she wants to understand everything. Though she is eager to hear what he had to say, she wanted him to take the time to explains things right.

"Well, to answer the second question first, I found your image in the ruins of a fallen tower. But they weren't like any ruins I've ever seen. Not like the underground ruins of the Old One where everything is covered in dust and rock. This place still looked new. Black metal torn and twisted and wires hanging all over the place like the insides of a machine," he explains, "whatever attacked the tower had done it recently. Sparks were still flickering from the… inner workings, I suppose you could say."

"Black metal?" Aloy asks.

"Yeah. And at the base of the tower was some kind of wicked device." Vale scratches the back of his head. "I don't even know how to describe it. But at the time I had a Focus, and the thing was emitting a signal. When I scanned it, I found your message, and where you were sending it from."

"And it led you here," she guesses, but Vale shakes his head.

"No. It actually led me to the Spire in Meridian. And that's when I realized it."

"Wait, it took you to the Spire?" Aloy replies. Vale nods, and she can already see lines connecting in her head. "Then that means…"

"The ruins I was standing in was the wreckage of another Spire. I could tell when I saw the Spire here. The black metal. All the machinery underneath that shell. The resemblance was uncanny."

Aloy releases a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. "Well it makes sense. I did send out a signal from that Spire. I didn't think to realize that other towers would receive that same signal, but, I guess that's what happened. So then how did you know where I was from there?"

Vale shrugs. "I asked around. The machine tamer who saved Meridian from an army of corrupted, ancient machines was back in her homeland in the east, helping her tribe recover from a vicious attack by the Shadow Carja. I followed the road until I got to Hunter's Gathering, where a few Nora members were. They pointed the way and I came here."

"So it really wasn't that hard to track me down."

"No," Vale replies. "Though it just happened to be luck that we crossed each other right at the gates. I was warned in Hunter's Gathering that the Nora were weary of outsiders and to expect a tough time getting in."

"It's true. The Nora don't take kindly to strangers who come from the bigger world," she answers flatly.

"You speak like you aren't a part of them."

"I'm not," Aloy replies quickly, feeling her blood suddenly boiling at the thought and reminder that the she was not for the Nora tribe to claim. "I'm not really a part of anything.

"Yet you're here, and you dress like a Nora," the man states.

"It's better for hunting."

He shrugs. "Makes sense."

"You still didn't answer my first question," she reminds him with strained patience.

"Right. Well the reason I sought you out was I figured you knew something. Right before I entered the ruins to the tower, I had to take down a massive machine that had risen from the ground. It wasn't like anything I've ever seen. Big guns mounted on either of its sides, missiles, not like the plasma charges off a Ravager's cannon. These were solid objects that flew faster than my eyes could track."

Hearing this, Aloy's breath hitches in her throat.

So the Deathbringers really had risen all over the world.

"You fought a _very_ dangerous machine, Vale. It took armies of men to take down just a couple of them, and even then the losses were too great," Aloy says grimly.

"I know. I didn't fight alone. I had friends… that fought that thing beside me, but they died in that battle," Vale speaks, in a low and hard tone. Though his gaze never falters from hers, Aloy could see the hurt in his eyes, masked by a steady face.

"I'm sorry, Vale," she says and can't help keeping his gaze. Her eyes drop to the ground and passively rubs her arm. "I wish I could have been quicker in getting the signal out."

"It can't be helped. Besides, the residents in Meridian explained to me that you fought so fiercely that you almost managed to defeat one all by yourself. They say some pretty wild things about you."

"Who exactly did you talk to?"

"Well one woman in particular claims she was right there with you, said you could've take on the whole army. Her name was Talanah."

Aloy smiles despite herself. "Yes, she was there in the final battle. I couldn't have done it without her. Without any of them."

"So what do you know about those machines?" Vale asks.

"Hold on, Vale. I have another question for you about something you mentioned earlier," she interrupts. "When we first met you said you had tracked that machine all the way to the gates of the Embrace. Where exactly did you track it from?"

"I tracked it from the mountains in the north. It's the first of its kind I've ever seen," Vale answers. "It was looking to kill you."

"How do you know that?"

"My Focus can tap into the radio harness inside machines. I can find orders, function duties, sent messages. This machine that I tracked had a kill order on one Elisabet Sobeck, which led me to believe that was who you were. But you say you're not. Why would the machine confuse you with someone else?"

"I probably know why," Aloy admits. "But it's…" she hesitates to tell this man exactly why the machine would mistake her as the scientist of the Old Ones. But it was a personal issue. She had never told that to anybody, and certainly not to a stranger she just met.

Vale seems to be reading her mind.

"Complicated?" he guesses.

She nods. "Yes. I know you came a long way for answers, Vale, but this is a personal secret that I'd rather not share. Not yet, anyway."

"Fine," Vale says, a neutral tone, but his face was soft. "Besides, that's not really my concern. What really concerns me is the machines. They're not just becoming dangerous, they're a threat. I want to know if there's anything we can do about it."

"And you really think I can help?" Aloy asks.

"Well you must know something. You managed to stop an army from tearing up Meridian, after all," Vale points out.

 _Not just Meridian, but the world,_ Aloy thinks to herself. She sighs outwardly and looks at the ground. Vale's presence almost feels intrusive. Here he was, finding her on a whim that she might know how to stop the machines. Like she hadn't tried to even understand how to begin that task for the past several months.

But this is the lead she needs. To bring Gaia back online, it looks like she would need to deal with the derangement of the machines first.

"All right, Vale. I think I know where to start. Tell me where you found that machine that tried to kill me. If I can follow it back where it came from, I might be able to get some answers."

Vale nods, a small grin on his face. "And I will. On one condition: I get to come with you."

"I'm faster on my own," she declines, but Vale shook his head.

"No, I don't think you know what I mean when I say that. The Derangement is getting worse. Machines don't just attack on sight anymore; they actively seek us out. You need someone who can watch your back and I'm that guy," Vale explains. Aloy is about to give him a reason to not go, but he continues, cutting her off, "I know how to handle machines, and I've worked with a team before. I'm not gonna slow you down. Besides, I didn't come all this way just to be told by some girl that I can't go with her. I need to see this through. Not just for myself, but for the friends who helped me get here."

Aloy pauses herself, her earlier reason now seeming insufficient. She would _really_ prefer to do this herself. If this involved any of the self-aware sub functions of Zero Dawn, then that could lead her on a journey to finally find them, learn to communicate with them, and bring them back to the Gaia Prime site that lay in the mountains in the northwest. She could bring Gaia back online.

But then this man had already come so far. It seemed unfair to tell him to leave. And after everything he had lost, denying him this chance would feel like a crime.

Aloy nods in understanding. "Alright, Vale. Guess we'll back traveling together."

"Good to hear it," he says. There was no sign of excitement on his face except for the small smile he had on in acknowledgment of her answer, and a keen eye that hints at determination. Aloy can sense he isn't just looking for adventure. He is looking for answers.

And they were going to discover them together.

"But before we go, you need to explain yourself. I need to know more than just your name."

"You don't trust me."

"I want to," she insists, "if we're going to do this. And I'm sure you've heard plenty about me already."

"I see," Vale scratches his chin and his eyes wander in thought. "Well, where do I start? Ah, let's sit down. This might take a bit."

So the two of them settle on the cliff overlooking to valley of the Embrace. The sky is beginning to darken, the vast orange slowly turning to blue and darkening. Vale begins with his origins, where he comes from, what kind of people he lives with; a tribe called the Lakota. Aloy had never heard of a tribe like that, but if he was anything to go by, they were a hardly people.

Vale explains that they are a working tribe. They built things and made stuff, sometimes for other tribes. It gives the impression that they're related to the Oseram, but he swears they are anything but. His people are much more _quiet_.

"Where exactly do you come from?" she asks.

"From the West, beyond the desert," he answers.

"Wait, so you came from the Forbidden West? Across the desert? I've read accounts where people go mad trying to cross it, or don't cross it at all."

"Well those people weren't prepared. I was," Vale says, picking at the grass on the ground. "It still took me almost two weeks just to cross it."

"Okay, but… how?"

"I know how to process chillwater into regular water. And in the desert, Glinthawks are _everywhere_ , picking at old scrap or the carcasses of machines that can't stand the environment."

"Glinthawks carry a canister of chillwater on their bodies," Aloy points out.

"Making water easy to access. I carried compact rations for food and tried to avoid machines as best as I could. I had to bury myself and wait two days for a herd of worm-like machine to make its nest and move on."

The Nora's eyes widen. "What kind of machine was it?"

"Don't know, I never got close enough to see. It was maybe the size of a Ravager. Still, I ran out of rations in the last stretch, maybe lost a couple stones of muscle because of it. I'm not looking forward to going back."

He went on further to explain what the land looked like. A range of dry mountains separated his home from the desert to their east, and to their west, the great ocean. The village he came from was right at the shore, perched up on a hill with a great view of it. Aloy tried to imagine what it looked like, but her best reference to go off of was the great lake that separated the Sun and Shadow Carja.

"Wait, so did you meet the Shadow Carja first?" she inquires.

"Yes," he replies with a roll of his eyes. "I thought they were all just baked from too much heat from the sun, but I guess they really are all Crazy Carja."

"Is that what you call them?"

"Don't they seem a little fanatic to you? Raving about their great sun god all the time."

Aloy doesn't say anything to that, mostly because she agrees to it.

"How did you learn to hunt machines? I've never seen anyone fight like you do."

Vale shrugs. "A few people taught me. When I first left home I realized I had to learn how to survive, so I sought out the best in the world, masters throughout the land. They taught things like stealth, strength and technique."

"And you're weapons?"

Vale unhooks the weapon strapped to his back, the hammer he had used in the battle earlier. It's shorter than she remembers. But then he sticks the pointy end in the ground and the shaft extends. The hammer at the end clicks into place and a spark sends a vent of flames upwards, engulfing the hammer head and giving them a source of light in the growing darkness.

"I made that myself," he says with pride. "Found a tinkerer who taught me some basic stuff, and the rest I learned by experimenting."

"What about the other thing on your back?"

It was hard to miss it. The giant plate of armour that was also strapped to his back, shaped like a diamond. It's a shield, she realizes. Not maybe warriors use them, in fact Aloy can't recall if she's ever _seen_ someone use them. He removes it from his back and Aloy is fascinated by the harness of wires and handles mounted behind the face of the shield.

"It's a work in progress, this piece. I've been stripping machines off parts to make it fit onto this."

"What's that?" Aloy points to the length of machinery that's mounted down the length of the shield. It looked familiar.

"Stalker cannon. I killed a Shell Walker recently, stole one of the shield modules off its arm, but I can't make it work with the cannon. Short circuits it."

"And the rope that I saw you use before?"

"One of my first projects," Vale pats his side where the neat roll of rope hangs. She can see a tangle or red and black wires. "High voltage conductive wire, tied to a sparker at the end."

"How do you avoid getting shocked?"

"Gloves made of non conducive material." The man holds up his hands, fingers widespread to show her. The gloves have metal plating covering the back of his hand and the knuckles, but otherwise completely covered in black leather. "Good grip for climbing, too."

"Oh. Interesting."

There was a pause in the air, which Vale is immediately aware of and looks at her.

"No more questions? You sure ask a lot."

Aloy shakes her head stretches her legs. "No, that's all I can think of for now. And besides, it's getting late, and I want to be well rested for the journey ahead. I'll take you to Mother's Heart. They have a lodge you can sleep in."

"They'll just let me?" Vale asks.

"Oh, they will, once I tell them to," she reassures him. Vale gets his feet and turns to face her in one easy motion.

"You sure you're not a chieftain or something?" he inquires, and again Aloy's mind buzzes with annoyance. Blast it all, she just wanted to forget about how the Nora worshipped her.

"No, I'm something much worse. Now follow, I'll show you the way."

* * *

Managed to shove in a weekend update before I got too carried away, and it's a dialogue-heavy one. I'm in the middle of chapter 11 right now with three more planned for sure, so I see a busy week ahead of me. I'm also trying to draw up a portrait of my OC Vale where it might be posted on DeviantArt or somewhere. I'm a traditional artist, so don't expect a ditigal masterpiece. BUUUUT if someone offered to do that by the time I'm done that it would be absolutely amazing.

Oh, and if you're wondering, this is the last part of this arc. If this were a video game, this would be the end of the questline. On that note, there will be 'sidequests'/intermissions as well. Anyways, enjoy!


	4. A New Kind of Machine Pt 1

**A New Kind of Machine Pt. 1**

-Vale, a skilled machine hunter, tells Aloy of the machine that tried to kill her, giving her direction once more…

* * *

Aloy wakes up before sunrise the next day and prepares herself for travel by crafting herself some arrows and making sure her other weapons are in good condition, as well as touching up her personal Nora attire. Since the battle at the Spire, she realized that armour was an important necessity when out in the wilds. Like the mercenary had mentioned earlier, she had noticed that the machines were becoming more aggressive when she was out exploring the Sacred Lands, proving harder to kill. So she had to equip herself accordingly.

She decides to set out in her casual brave attire, the very same Teb had put together for her all those months ago for the Proving. But there are some new personal additions on it. A fox pelt drapes over her left shoulder, the tail falling down her back. Over her right shoulder is conversant machine armour tied together with blue wires so it can move with her arm freely without hinderance. A new, wider metal brace covers her left forearm and both shins are now protected by small metal plating. The same assortment of beads and her blue scarf wraps around her neck and fingerless leather gloves dress her hands, a nice improvement for the colder conditions of the Sacred Land and the snow-covered mountains that border it. Most of the armour is light-weighted and doesn't hamper her movements, so it's a welcome change.

When she steps outside, the lights of the standing torches around Mother's Watch have already been lit. A pair of Nora braves walk by on patrol, greet her with bows and blessings before continuing on their way.

Against her personal wishes, Aloy chose to live in Mother's Watch, as close to All Mother as she could – close to the Cradle facility so she could access it whenever she pleased. And being the Nora tribe's 'Anointed' one, demanding that was never hard.

Her small home was built up on the hill, along the winding path that led up to All Mother mountain. It was built during reconstruction efforts after the attack by the Eclipse when they nearly levelled the village. It was the only place suitable for her tastes, aside from the fact that she lived so close to other people now, but she tried to ignore that fact as much as possible. The only other home she had was, well… hard to stare at.

With her gear ready and a small pack with her extra weapons and tools, Aloy sets out immediately to Mother's Heart to retrieve Vale. She was always an early riser, so it's likely that he would still be asleep. She hated the thought that now she would have to wake him up in the mornings, but she _did_ agree to have him along for the journey, so she told herself to deal with it.

When she reaches the entrance, Varl is waiting for her up on the wall. He climbs down the ladder just as she approaches.

"You're leaving again, are you?"

He's been expecting it, as the tone in his voice suggests. Her head dips a little. She knows she has a habit of taking off without letting anyone know. It's because most of the time the Matriarchs would want to say prayers and blessings before sending her away, and Aloy just couldn't partake in that or be bothered.

"Yeah. I think I finally figured out what I'm supposed to do next. I might be gone for a while," she says.

"The Matriarchs will want to talk to you," he replies.

"I know, but this is important. Tell them I have the consent of All Mother to leave for another quest."

"I will." He moves to push the gates open wide. Aloy can hear the first birdsong of the day as she steps out into the wilderness of the Embrace. Even after the Eclipse had devastated it, it was a beautiful thing to see the life growing back.

"Gotta admit, I wish I was going with you," Varl says. Aloy looks back at him.

"What?" It's a big surprise to her. For the months after that big battle, Varl had never spoken of the bigger world or expressed any interest to explore beyond their borders. In fact, he seemed quite reserved about it, hiding his thoughts behind quiet nods and casual conversation.

This is a big deal to her.

"I've been thinking since going to Meridian, about what lies beyond the borders, the places you must have gone to. Are they really so blighted? Shunned from All Mother's eyes? The people in Meridian welcomed us as allies, friends even, but… we ignored them. I'm starting to think that maybe we're the ones shunning ourselves from the world, not the other way around."

Aloy shakes her head. "No one's shunning anyone Varl, as long as you're kind and considerate, people will treat you with respect. But a lifetime of tradition isn't going to change overnight. It'll take time for the Nora to accept that there _is_ a much bigger world out there. Maybe one day you'll get to come with me on a quest of our own."

"I'd like that, but for now, I'll protect our people. Someone has to look after them while you're away."

The huntress smiles and waves at him. "I know you will, Varl. Take care."

"You too. Safe travels, Aloy."

The sun is above the horizon by the time she reaches the gates to the Nora capital, Mother's Heart. She is pleasantly surprised to find the man up and awake, sitting by the bonfire strapping his armour on. His upper body is bare except for a black scarf that wraps around his shoulders. Aloy can see a few Nora natives staring at him as she walks by and hears their words of gossip. She tries to look oblivious.

"What's with all that armour?"

"Why are we allowing a faithless man to stay with us…"

"…should have left him out in the wilds…"

Vale looks up to her just as she stops. His Focus is lit up in that odd green pattern.

"I'm surprised you're up so early. Most of the Nora braves haven't gotten out of bed yet," she says.

"Early? I got the impression that this was late for you," Vale replies, not a hint of sleep deprivation on his face. When Aloy is about to explain herself, he speaks again as he continues strapping his armour on, "My masters drilled a… strict sleeping schedule into me for years. They'd make me get up while the sky was still black to go hunting. Sometimes they'd even attack me in my sleep for no reason."

"Why? Did you learn anything from that?"

"Got rid of my snoring problem." Vale sets his chest plate over his head and tightens it down with practiced care, the last bit of armour to put on, and then drapes a leather strap across his body that holds his hammer to his back. "Ready to go?"

"Yes. We should be close to Mother's Crown by high noon," Aloy tells him, to which Vale gives her an odd look.

"High noon? Are we sprinting?"

"No, not sprinting; riding," she says as she turns around to leave for the gates. Vale picks up his shield sitting next to him and gets up.

"Riding? What do you mean by that?"

"You'll see!" she calls back, as she heads back for the exit.

… … …

They wind up deep in the middle of the valley of the Embrace, slowly approaching a herd of Striders that usually occupy the clearing near the road. The two of them sneak up to the herd in the tall grass, Aloy's spear in her hand, her original spear. Vale crawls behind her slowly, surprisingly quiet with all his armour.

"What's your plan here?" he whispers.

"Just wait here until I'm done," she whispers back, her eyes not leaving the lone Strider in front of her.

"Done what?"

"Just wait here."

Vale grunts but sits put. She approaches the machine cautiously from the rear. Its head is down, grazing the greenery around it dutifully. Whatever the Derangement is doing to the machines, you couldn't tell by looking at this peaceful machine, except maybe for the metal plating that protects the blaze canister on its back, which not all machines had.

The Strider is perfectly still as she jabs the rear end of her spear into its side. The override device goes to work quickly, and soon a new kind of wire has spread over the machine's mane. It neighs quietly and turns to her, awaiting command.

She catches Vale's utterly dumbfounded expression.

"Take this one and go," she urges, taking the Strider by the wire on its head and pulling it towards him.

"What did you just do?" he asks.

"I'll explain it later. Go!"

Vale grabs the machine and pulls it away towards the road. Aloy creeps further and lures another Strider closer with a whistle before she overrides its mind also and doubles back to the road.

Vale watches in mild astonishment as Aloy approaches him, riding the machine.

"What are you waiting for? Get on," she states.

He hesitates.

"I didn't think they were rideable…"

"It's not very comfortable, but it'll get us there fast. Come on," Aloy steers her machine down the road and starts trotting along.

"Wha… wait!" The man shouts. He jumps onto the back of the Strider so abruptly that the machine takes off on its own before he finds his grip. He stays on, but fumbles for a place to hold on to as they race after her.

… … …

Well into afternoon that day they pass by Mother's Crown. Vale had taken the lead after they crossed the gates of the Embrace and after he had learned to control the Strider with Aloy's instruction. They trudge into snow-covered ground in the plains east of the village. Aloy is thankful the air was getting warmer, but that means her boots would become soaked in the soggy brush.

Vale leads her close to the trees before he stops.

"This is where I first saw the machine," he announces. "I was hiding in the trees over there when I found it. Look, there's still tracks in the ground."

Aloy slides off her mount and activates her Focus. The footprints smoosh the grass into the wet ground, making a half-inch imprint on the ground. The tracks come from the north and lead to the Embrace, but she notices some other things as well.

"Look at how straight the tracks are," she says, not to anyone in particular. She steps over the tracks and looks down the trail. She has never seen a machine leave a more straight line in her life. They disappear behind the trees and up the hill. Whatever had ordered this machine to kill her, the programming was _very_ specific.

"The tracks come from that way," Vale points to the mountains in the north. Aloy tags the trail and deactivates her Focus.

"We can go on foot from here. I don't think it traveled much farther."

"What makes you say that?"

Aloy turns herself his way when she says; "The Cauldron is that way."

The mercenary gives her a quizzical look. "Cauldron?"

He jogs to catch up to her as she follows the tracks backwards. They're straight except for when they have to go around a large jagged rock or a hill too steep to climb. The farther they follow the tracks, the more Aloy is convinced that it had come from the facility nearby. She could see the mountain where it was carved into.

"What's a Cauldron?" Vale asks suddenly. Aloy stops in her tracks and looks back at him.

"You don't know what a Cauldron is?"

He shrugs. "Describe it, and I might know."

"Uh, it's kind of like an underground facility, except it's all made of metal, to make more machines," she explains. She wants to keep moving, so she turns to the trail and steps forward.

"I think I've heard of something like that before. But I've never known how to get inside one. And that's where the machines are made?" Vale inquires.

"Yes. Each Cauldron makes a different species of machine, so far as I've learned. If this Cauldron made that machine that tried to kill me, we might see more of them."

"So we should go prepared."

"Exactly."

They cross a small creek before the last of the rocks separate them from a view of the Cauldron door. Aloy reduces herself to a crouch and stays close to cover as much as possible. Vale follows her lead and remains right behind her.

"What are we going to find there?" he says, just low enough to not be considered a whisper, but quiet enough that any machines around couldn't hear him.

"There's a door that we have to get through. I have a device that can get us in, but it's probably guarded by machines. I wouldn't be surprised if we found an army of machines waiting for us," Aloy replies. She stops just behind a boulder and draws her bow. "Got any traps?"

"A few. Are they really that heavily guarded?"

"No, but with the Derangement getting worse, it's not a good idea to go underprepared."

"I understand," Vale heaves his shield over his head. "Let's see what we're up against."

They creep along further. Aloy can recognize the terrain now and knows when they come up on their last bit of cover. They both peak over the last chunk of rock so they can get a glimpse of the entrance to the Cauldron.

It's concerning with how many the blue lights she sees. Half a dozen machines in all patrol the entrance: two Fire Bellowbacks standing on either side of the clearing, a trio of Watchers on rotation and a Sawtooth that stands right in front of the door.

"Looks like you were right, Aloy. An army awaits us," Vale confirms.

"But why? What are they trying to keep us from?" The huntress murmurs to herself.

"That's a lot of metal to handle," Vale points out.

"We can get through them. We just need a strategy," Aloy pins her Focus and looks at all the data she can see. The Watcher's patrol routes luckily pass close to a convenient patch of grass, and there is nothing mechanically different about the other machines.

"Can you see anything different?" she asks. Vale brings his Focus online and his eyes dart around. His information isn't visible through her Focus. She's curious as to what he can see.

"It looks like their duty is to protect the door above all else. Anything that comes near it is to dealt with with lethal force," he says. "These machines will fight to the end."

"Is there anything different about them?"

"Not that I can see."

Aloy is already beginning to devise a plan. The Sawtooth and Watchers were the speed backed by the heavy firepower of the Bellowbacks to create a balanced defence. There had to be a way to break it down. Separate the two sides and they would go down quickly. Aloy glances at the mercenary's shield.

"How much of a punch can that thing take?" she inquires.

"Enough to break the other guy. It's saved my life more times than I can count," he states confidently.

"Okay, so here's what we're going to do: we can both kill the Watcher's near that patch of grass so they don't alert the others. After that, I'll deal with the Bellowbacks; I can outpace them. You take out that Sawtooth. You can do that, can't you?"

"I can," Vale reaches for his helmet and puts it on. "Ready when you are, huntress."

Aloy waits for an opportunity to jump over to the grass without any of the machines spotting them. They make a quick transition and Aloy waits until one of the Watchers is close. She whistles just loud enough for the machine's eye to flash yellow and shine in her direction. She crouches on her knees and waits for it to get close enough and, like a Snapmaw sitting by the shore, snatches her prey with her spear and drags the small machine into the grass, twisting her spear into the head of the machine until she can hear a characteristic _snap_.

Vale goes next. He lures another Watcher over with a sweet two-note whistle and doesn't move again until the machine is within arm's reach. His takedown is just as fast as hers, plunging a hidden knife into the lens of the machine.

Aloy grabs two fire arrows from her quiver, scrapes them across the her arm brace to light them and aims for the crane of the neck of the closest Bellowback. Her arrows land square between the protective metal plating and one of the arrows severs a tube that carries the liquid blaze to the machine's snout. Instantly, it and the other machines are alerted, scanning the area for threats.

Vale rises and aims the cannon on his shield at the last Watcher. With expert aim he shoots it straight in the eye, disabling the machine quickly. The other machines are beginning to mobilize when he grabs his hammer and charges for the Sawtooth. Aloy shoots at the other Bellowback to get it's attention; the other one she had attacked already spotting her and making its way, nostrils flaring with fire.

She dives to the side to avoid a fireball launched by one of the machines. She turns and launches a tearblast arrow straight into the machine's nose, blasting the protective plates clear. A few sparks flicker, and when it tries breathing a torrent of flames at her, it only comes out of the one nostril. After dodging another attack, she shoots a fire arrow into the side of its nose that's sparking. When it trying to gas her with flames again, the backfire sends flames back up the tube until it makes the giant sack of blaze on its back explode into a firestorm. The flammable liquid coats the other machines too, setting them on fire.

The Sawtooth wriggles in a panic as its wires burn. Vale takes his chance to strike. He swings his hammer up under the machine's jaw and flips it onto its side. He takes another weapon from his back, one she can't quite see because he moves so fast – and slashes the jugular wires at its throat. The machine's lights go out.

Aloy finishes off the last machine by pelting it with hard-tipped arrows that easily penetrate the sack under it's head. When it finally explodes, it falls in a heap of metal and flames.

Aside from the sound of waves from the fires and Aloy's own breath, everything is quiet. She makes a quick scan of her surroundings just to make sure every machine is dead, and then approaches the door. Vale meets her there.

"This is a door?" he asks casually, looking up at its triangular shape.

"It is. Are you ready?" she replies.

"Yeah, but how do we get in?"

"With this," Aloy heaves her spear from her back. Vale's quizzical look remains, but instead of explaining it to him, she walks up to the door and sticks the rear end of her spear against the node mounted at the centre of the door. The device works its way through the security codes and firewalls before a satisfying click echoes throughout the metal and the door begins opening. Vale watches in amazement as the metal shifts and clears away, allowing them to view the inner workings of the Cauldron.

"Whoa," is his response.

"Ready to get started?" she asks. He doesn't quiet answer her, but the look of wander on his face reminds her of when she first stepped into the Cauldron month's ago. His curiosity is just as intrigued as hers is.

"I… guess I have to be," he finally words out and looks back at her. "You know the way."

Aloy takes that as her cue to move forward. She hooks her spear back into place and walks in, Vale following her cautiously. A few feet into the Cauldron, the giant triangular door closes behind them on its own.

* * *

Living in Canada is great. I mean really great. You get to experience all kinds of weather activity packed into one week. -_- I hope you guys are enjoying this, because there's plenty more to come still!


	5. A New Kind of Machine Pt 2

**A New Kind of Machine Pt. 2**

The Cauldron is noisy and busy with life as it had been when Aloy had first walked its tangled tunnels and open forges months ago, yet this time the Nora huntress walked with a more purposeful step. She has her bow in hand, careful to avoid the machines that patrol the metal labyrinth and the large assembly machines that work ceaselessly.

Vale follows her a few steps back, his eyes darting in every which direction to look at everything that he can. It's clear that this place fascinates him greatly. She remembers him mentioning how he was a bit of a tinkerer, all his weapons fashioned himself. How this place must have looked like a treasury of mechanical wonders to him. Aloy muses that she had similar feelings, except she wasn't interested as to _how_ it was as to _why_ , until she found her answer a few months ago. Now, even though she wasn't mechanically inclined, it still amazed her just to see the machines at work.

They reach a circulating belt of transporting crates that float through the air. Vale activates his Focus to scan them, his hands moving quickly, no doubt saving data for later reference.

"What makes them float like that?" he asks.

"I'm not sure, something to do with magnets," she answers.

"Magnets? What are those?"

"I think they're a special kind of rock that pull other things towards them, like metal."

"Oh."

They continue down the massive metal cavern, sneaking past the Watchers on guard. They pass by an opening where they could see the centre of the Cauldron, it's working arms moving back and forth to create another machine. They can't go there directly because of the giant gap between them, but Aloy remembers the path.

"That's the core. We should be able to find information about the machine there," she states.

"How do you know what we're looking for is there?"

"Because I've been here before."

"I figured that. You know you're way around this place," Vale says. Aloy turn back to face him. "I mean what makes you believe the Cauldron made that machine specifically? Is there something else here?"

Aloy stares at him while gathering the right words to say. So he was insightful as he was capable. A good quality, if it didn't mean having to dodge all his tricky questions.

"I'm… not quite sure. But there's an information hub at the core. It might give us details as to why the Cauldron made that machine," Aloy says, and it was her best honest answer. Once Vale nods, she continues to lead him through the Cauldron. They walk through the path that loops them through the outside into the fresh air before diving back in, straight for the core.

When Aloy reaches the final platform she stops to stare at the machine the Cauldron is currently building.

"It's the same machine," she exclaims.

"It's making another one?" Vale says, stepping next to her to get a view. Standing there in the middle of the domed force field is the same model of machine that attacked them at the gates. It's already active, it's red eyes darting back and forth and moving it's limbs one at a time to test that they work properly. "Well we know the first one didn't get the job done. Where's the core?"

"Underneath that machine. So we'll have to kill it first," Aloy points to the pylons around the core. "See those towers? Once I'm up there, I can take that shield down and we can destroy it."

"Good thing we came prepared."

Aloy ropes down the platform to level ground. Vale follows her. There are a few Watchers guarding the perimeter of the shield. Once Aloy takes care of them with some carefully placed arrows, she begins climbing one of the pylons, careful to avoid the electricity that jumps between the two metal rods near the top. Once there, she can see Vale placing his traps on the ground around him. She can't see exactly what they are, but she feels the need to call out to him.

"Okay! I'm going to lower the shield!"

"Good to go!" he shouts back. The huntress turns to the node that sits at the top of the pylon and strikes her spear in it. A few seconds later, the node turns blue and the alarm sounds. The pylon lowers into the ground as the shield disappears. The machine turns to her.

"Hey ugly!" Vale bark and shoots the machine with the cannon on his shield. The machine growls and focuses on him instead. The machine leaps into a sprint, but before it reaches him, the ground lights up in blue lightning and strikes the machine, paralyzingly it in place. Vale runs up to it and places a different kind of device on it, and then sprints away. A few seconds later, the side of the machine cracks open in an explosion.

It deals a heavy amount of damage. Sparks jump from its side wildly in a shower almost. The machine tries to turn, limping on it's one leg.

"Hit it before it transforms!" the mercenary shouts as he grabs his hammer from his back. Aloy loads two arrows onto her bow, but then a blinding light shines from the machine.

It's too late. The machine starts growing new armour to cover its vulnerable hide and to replace what it lost. The light hurt even looking at it sideways, which keeps her from aiming her arrows at the machine.

When the light subsides, she could hear the loud crunch of metal breaking. When she looks, she could see Vale swinging his hammer at the transformed machine with cool vigour. That makes no sense. Was he not blinded by the light?

Aloy remembers her arrows and shoots them at the machine. The armour is so dense that her arrows bounce harmlessly off the metal. She wishes for her blast sling, which she had left with her Strider outside. She searches her quiver for tearblast arrows instead.

Meanwhile, the mercenary takes a hard hit and falls back against a metal ledge. Somehow he stays conscious, but the machine is right on top of him. Aloy fires her tearblast arrow just in front of Vale's feet as the machine leaps at him. When the tearblast goes off, the force wave careens the machine just over his head, saving him.

Aloy lights some arrow tips on fire and sends them in the machine's direction. It dodges a few of them, but she could still predict its movements, just like any other machine she had faced. A blue arc also shoots the machine, paralyzingly one of its legs. She finds it comes from Vale's weapon. The hammer head is shifted from its place and a long barrel is revealed, worked into the shaft of his weapon that fires electric shocks. He fires again and paralyzes its other leg, rendering its front legs immobile.

Vale rushes up to it and brought down his hammer directly on top of its head, smashing the protective plate there. But it seems the paralysis doesn't last long. The machine jumps up and comes down on him with teeth barred. He stops it by letting it bite down on his weapon instead, but the machine tosses him to the side, across the Cauldron floor and tosses his weapon the other way.

Aloy can see it then; the glowing delicate nexus that sits in the machine's head, gleaming a brilliant magenta and now visible. She quickly picks a hard point arrow from her quiver as the machine charges at Vale. She leads her shot just enough and it strikes true. Vale is smart enough to dive out of the way as the machine skids past him into a heap.

She joins him as he stares at the machine. He isn't breathing as heavily as one might expect, but she could tell he was wincing a little, having fell on his back hard.

"I really hope there aren't any more of those things out there," he says, not taking his eyes off the corpse.

"What makes you say that?" she asks.

"Who else would figure out how to kill them like we did just now? That component you shot is right there, but I only made it available because I had the ability to scan it. Nobody else can do that."

"Wait, you can see its weaknesses?"

"Yeah, there's the brain on its head, and then there's the two devices on its sides that are protected by plating. Those devices are how it transforms with the new armour. You're meaning to tell me you didn't know?"

"I can't see anything with my Focus," Aloy says, and taps her device to make sure that hasn't changed since the last time they fought this machine. She can only see the nexus now because it is exposed. Vale shrugs.

"Sorry, I just assumed you knew."

"We managed to kill it, so there's no point in worrying about it now. But you'll have to let me look at your Focus sometime. I'm curious to see what's different about it," she replies, and turns to the centre of the Cauldron, where the core is rising from the ground.

"Sure, when we're not busy," is his response.

Aloy walks up to the core and gives it a quick once over with her own eyes before tapping her Focus. Nothing seems different about it physically, and a scan reveals nothing compared to when she hacked into it last time, but this time she wasn't looking to learn how to override machines; she wanted to look into the detailed logs of the core functions.

Aloy grabs her spear and sticks it into the node. She then activates her Focus to view the data. She can't understand everything she sees, but she can point out specific details she recognizes. One in particular; a query sent to GPrime, not responded to.

In fact there are several messages sent to the Gaia Prime site that are left unanswered.

Aloy knew that Hephaestus, one of the subordinate functions of Gaia, made the machines. If questions were sent to Gaia Prime about certain machines with no reply, then it would assume it necessary to go ahead and make a new machine. This was directed linked to the Derangement.

"What do you see?" Vale asks, which makes her snap out of her thoughts.

"Do you know how to link to different devices?" she says. Hopefully he does, because she never discovered it, and she never learned how to when Sylens was communicating with her. Too bad he disappeared.

Vale shakes his head. "I don't. I can try to figure that out while you do your thing."

"Good idea."

Vale goes exploring into his own device as Aloy searches for more information.

After what felt like half a day, both them sitting there on the floor with their own displays, Aloy hasn't gotten anywhere, and she sits there simmering in frustration. She searches for any recent messages that might have led to the Cauldron making this dangerous new machine, but she can't. She did find her kill orders, however. A file referencing the Master Override and its recent activation was immediately followed by a new production sequence. Who the target is was based on who activated the Master Override, which, consequently, there was only person in the world that had the clearance.

Elisabet Sobeck. And since Aloy shared the same blood as she, when an identity profile popped up, it was her face on the screen. The machine recognized her as the scientist.

"Well, I know why the machine targeted me," Aloy says aloud, not meaning to. She flinches when Vale speaks.

"You figured it out? How?" he asks. Aloy hesitates for obvious reasons. She looks over her shoulder to find him staring back, waiting patiently for an answer. She doesn't feel like giving it.

"It's complicated."

"Really? That's your favourite answer, isn't it?" Vale says and sighs. Aloy looks away, feeling slightly ashamed for keeping more information away from him, but explaining her strange origins was going to be a lengthy and difficult conversation that she didn't want to have. "Listen, I gotta understand what's going on here if you want me to help. Don't you trust me?"

Her emotions quickly change. "Trust doesn't come to those who have just met, Vale," she replies spitefully.

"Even if one saved the other's life?"

Aloy sighs.

An alarm pins in her Focus and a red symbol flashes across several points along the data. The data disappears and a new entry of code starts to write itself.

"What?" Aloy fidgets with the new entries, trying to stop it but nothing seems to work. Eventually she lets it go until it stops itself, replacing all the data she had been looking at before, but in an eerie orange glow. A few more entries write themselves, one of which she interacts with. She can't read most of the writing except for the header.

 _Alert: Command Protocol directives initiated. ._

"Command Protocol?" she ponders. "What's that?"

"What's what?" Vale speaks, still preoccupied with his task. She doesn't reply. She finds another entry she recognizes; numbers. The Old Ones used to number their days and years. This text is linked to the directives she just read.

 _3039/6/17. 18:24:47._

Aloy searches for the date settings in her Focus, curious as to what the date is today. It takes her exactly ten seconds to find it. When she does, her blood freezes.

 _3039/6/17. 18:24:57._

She shuts off her Focus and snatches her spear from the core.

"We need to leave, now!" she exclaims.

"What? Why?" Vale must've detected the urgency in her voice, because he shoots right up to his feet.

"There's no time to explain. We need to—"

An alarm sounds throughout the Cauldron. They can feel it at their feet through the ground. The core disappears into the ground as machines pops out from behind the blue one-way shields in large numbers. They starts to surround the two of them as they bring out their weapons and start firing them into the crowd of gathering metal creatures.

" _Priority target recognized. Eliminate Elisabet Sobeck,"_ a voice echoes over their heads. Aloy remembers the stagnant voice, the clear driven instruction that any blacksmith or tinkerer would use.

"Hephaestus!"

"You know who that is?" Vale shouts, blocking a Scrapper with his shield when it lunges at him.

"We need to get out of here!"

"I agree! But we can't climb back up to the platform under heavy fire."

And to further prove that point, Vale pushes her back and holds his shield over them to block the bolts from a Ravager's cannon. Aloy looks everywhere, for anything that can get them out of their situation.

She spots in one corner of the foundry floor a large stationary machine behind one of the pylons, probably used to build the Cauldron itself at one point. It's bulk isn't too big for them to climb over, but they still need to vault up a certain height.

"I know a way. Follow me!" Aloy cries as she shoots out the eye of a Watcher and starts sprinting. The mercenary is right on her heels, shooting at machines in her way and clearing a path. The Ravager leaps at them, but they both jump out of the way and Vale swings his hammer into the machine's back leg, breaking the limb like a twig.

Aloy jumps up over the ledge in one fluid motion as soon as she reaches the deactivated machine. Vale tosses his weapons over before he jumps up after her and keeps going.

Luckily the path that they follow from there isn't guarded by machines. They run through the inner works of the Cauldron, on a path that Aloy hasn't explored before, and it makes her nervous. She doesn't know if there is a way out of the Cauldron in this direction.

They stop when they came to dead end. Some of the machines have followed them and they were firing a hail of projectiles at them to keep them at bay. Aloy looks around frantically. She sees sunlight down a tunnel, but it's blocked by a blue energy shield that has no node for her to hack into. All there is are metal plating that make a frame around the shield. She makes a quick decision and wedges her spear into the metal, beginning a lengthy process of pulling it apart. She remembers going inside the Cradle facility under All Mother mountain and ripping up the paneling when one of the doors stopped working once. There was conductive wiring underneath it that looked just like a machine's hide. If the Cauldrons were anything like the Cradle facilities, she would have the same luck here.

"I need something small and sharp!" she demands urgently. Pulling aside another panel, she can see a massive bulk of thick wires. "You got anything like that?"

Vale stops a Strider from kicking him with his shield. "A knife!"

He unsheathes the small blade and throws it hard enough to embed it in the wall right beside her head. She would have yelled at him for throwing sharp objects at her, but she's more concerned with escaping the facility first. She grabs the knife and starts pulling at wires and cutting them.

"How's it looking? Can you get us out?" Vale asks.

"I just need to find the power source to this shield. If I cut it, I can take it down."

Vale taps on his Focus and looks at the wiring for a whole three seconds.

"There, the red one!"

Aloy hears the familiar sound of a Scrapper charging up its maws. When she looks up, a yellow laser beam fires past Vale's shield and cuts open his leg. He yelps and collapses, but managed to put his shield in front of him. Aloy turns her attention back to the wires and plunges the knife straight into the red wire. The shield blinks out of existence, leaving nothing in their way from getting to the outside. She glances back at Vale just as he shoots the Scrapper with his cannon.

"Go! I'm right behind you!"

She sprints for the exit, still clutching the knife. At the end, the floor stops at a shear drop, but there's a metal overhang she can rope down on. She jumps, expertly lassoes the metal overhang and shimmies her way down. Vale follows her shortly after, sliding down on his own rope. The two of them land on the ground and continue running into the surrounding forest, putting as much distance between themselves and the angry machines as possible.

… … …

As soon as it starts to get dark is when they stop for a break. In the valley cliffs above them was Hunter's Gathering, and on the other side of them was a lake. She can see the blue gleaming eyes of the Sawtooths that patrol the corner of the lake in the distance. Aloy stands on the well-beaten road with her hands on her hips as Vale leans against a rock. With their little break she had time to ponder over what had happened in the Cauldron.

Her suspicions were realized. Hephaestus was mobilizing his machines against her, and creating powerful new machines in the process, _and_ making the Derangement even worse than before. It was out of the question now.

What shocks her most is how Hephaestus know it's her he has to kill. Somehow it knows that Aloy had used the Master Override to purge Hades, which was hard to comprehend. The signal sent out by the Spire was meant to disable the Faro robots for good. It didn't touch any of Gaia's machines, but maybe there had been a crossed signal mixed in there somewhere – random machine luck. There were thousands of robots throughout the world, so it was definitely possible.

"You're awfully quiet," Vale speaks up. Snapped out of her thoughts, Aloy turns to him.

"Sorry, I was thinking."

"About what happened back there?"

"…Yeah."

A moment of silence passes between them.

"Who's Hephaestus."

It sounds more like a demand than a question, and Aloy is reluctant. Why did he ask so many questions? And why were they always about the sensitive subjects?

Something was going to have to give.

"And don't tell me it's complicated."

Damn his curiosity.

"It's a… mind, of some sort. I don't really understand it myself," Aloy answers, which is about as close to the truth as she can come up with. She really doesn't understand how the AI works. "It makes the machines that inhabit the world, to heal it from… what the Old Ones had done to it."

"What are you talking about? What did the Old Ones do?"

The Nora sighs in frustration.

"Do you know anything about the Old Ones at all?" she asks, whipping her head around to face him.

Vale shrugs. "A little. I know that something big wiped them out. How else would a whole civilization fall?"

"What about the robots that killed them and destroyed the whole world?" Aloy brings up. It's likely he doesn't know, which is a whole other topic she's relenting having to go through, and it frustrates her even further.

"What?"

"Or the group of people that made this all possible, what they sacrificed so that we could have a future? Why is everyone so ignorant!" she shouts, her pent up anger building. The mercenary holds his hands up.

"Alright! I get it. You clearly know something the rest of us don't," he says through bared teeth. The annoyance is evident in his voice as well.

Aloy turns away, trying to control her flaring anger with with a few conscious breaths, but they're shaky and quick. She crosses her arms and her head dips down. Her head spinning with chaotic thoughts, she closes her eyes to try and collect herself again.

"Sorry. I used to doing this alone."

"I can tell."

"Look," she begins, trying to keep herself from bursting out in rage, "the things I know… nobody else in the world does. And I haven't gone spreading that knowledge around because it challenges the way people think about how the world works. They would call me crazy, or a sun-baked savage, or a… _whatever_ they come up with. Believe me, I'd like to tell people, make them understand, but people already have their own cultures, their own way of thinking. And some people don't like change," she explains.

" _Some_ people are more open-minded than others," Vale replies, anger replaced with a simpler tone. "Like me. My people never had an ideal, or a religion. We _believed_ that hard work would get you somewhere in the world, and believe me when I say I worked very hard to get here. I _want_ to understand, so that the world the Old Ones left us isn't destroyed by some machine who's only trying to kill one girl! Ah!"

When Vale tries to stand, his one leg gives out and he collapses onto his knees. Aloy immediately goes to him. The wound is on his leg, the skin burnt along his inner thigh from when that Scrapper had caught him off guard. He had run all this way on an injury.

"Your leg…" Aloy begins, but her voice trails off. Vale's face is scrunched up in pain, but in anger as well. He calms himself with one steady breath and casually turns to face her.

"Don't make all my hard work for nothing."

Aloy realizes he is presenting her with a choice. His ignorance to the situation was only because of her negligence to cure it. He would die looking for answers if they continued on this path, and the blood would be on her hands. She already had enough people die because of her, she didn't need this burden.

She also thought back to their earlier conversation back in the Cauldron. If they were to continue, it had to be on a foundation of trust. Trust would allow them to confide in each other and help each other and learn the secrets of the world. Screw what Sylens thought about trust.

"Fine. You want the truth?" Aloy gets to her feet. "You'll have it. I won't give it to you all at once. It's overwhelming, even for me," she sighs, "but if you're going to do this with me, I need your word that you won't speak of this to anyone. I'm trusting with secrets that could destroy the world."

She stretches out her hand in offering. Vale stares at it, long enough that she thinks of retracting it, but then he takes it, and she's surprised at how tough it is to pull him up, but he manages to stand up.

"I promise. I know that doesn't sound like anything, but your secrets won't leave my lips."

He releases her hand and then crosses his arm over his chest, a fist clenched over his heart, and he bows. She suddenly feels uncomfortable. A bow in her mind would be an act of recognition towards royalty, like the servants in Sun King Avad's court would, but she's hardly royalty. She doesn't say anything though, as it's probably just a custom among Vale's tribe that she's unfamiliar with.

When he stands up straight, they both nod to each other.

"So what next?" he asks.

Aloy points to the mountains in the east. "We need to go to Meridian. I need the Master Override."

* * *

Interested in what Vale looks like? I managed to draw up a little something over on DeviantArt. The link to it is on my profile, so go take a look and tell me what you think!


	6. A New Kind of Machine Pt 3

**A New Kind of Machine Pt. 3**

They don't travel much farther that day. Vale's wound needs attention, and herds of machines surround them. Aloy doesn't want to risk getting caught with an injured companion to look after, so once they came upon the forsaken village, once called Mother's Vigil, they take up shelter in one of the old huts that's still standing.

Watchers and a Sawtooth stalk the ruins as they patch up their fort for the night, making sure no peeping machines can see inside. They had agreed that a fire would be a bad idea, but the light of Vale's fire weapon makes a good lantern as they set about patching his wound. Aloy grounds up some freshly picked medical herbs as Vale gets some wrapping bandage ready. He hisses when he pulls the burnt cloth away from the charred skin, and tenses up as hard as a rock when Aloy applies the salve, but no machines hear them.

It would be a short night for them. Over the past few months, Aloy had studied the machine patrols closer and found a pattern. There was a cycle between night and day. Different machines moved to different places throughout the map, reenforcing important areas such as Cauldron entrances or old facilities. Particularly in their area, the Sawtooth would be replaced by Scrappers before dawn, leaving a short window where the Watchers would be by themselves. If she dispatched them before the Scrappers came along, they could escape for the border without too much trouble.

As Aloy settles in to her corner of the camp, on top of an old pile of furs, she sends a signal to her Strider, another useful technique she had learned. With a map of the Nora lands, she could find her overridden mount and direct it to move on its own. She sets both their mounts' destination to a secluded spot near the ruined village, so that they were in reach when they had to leave in the morning and get back her bag of gear.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Vale fidgeting in his spot, trying to get comfortable. He presses a hand to the bandage and sighs quietly.

"It's gonna be a long night…" he groans.

"Try not to lose your wit over there."

"Sorry."

Silence passes. Machine footsteps can be heard faintly outside, and for a moment Aloy is afraid they might have heard them. But the sound continues on for several minutes. That probably meant they were safe.

"So…"

Aloy shuts down her Focus and looks at him. He wasn't looking back, instead looking down at the Focus in his hand. His Focus.

"What part of this 'truth' do you want to tell me about first?"

It was a question Aloy had been asking herself ever since they had settled, and a difficult one. She wanted to start explaining around the story that Vale already knew, which wasn't much, but still more than what most people knew, to his credit. She wanted to fill the gaps of his knowledge wisely without confusing him, but at the same time not reveal anything that he might not need to know.

"Well, where do you want me to start?" she asks.

"Hephaestus," Vale chooses. "Who is he really? You said before he was a kind of mind?"

"It's true. What he really is, is a machine; a program, like the interface on your Focus. Except it can make its own decisions, and it works just like a human mind. But it's only concern is what machines to build. Every species of machine out there is something that Hephaestus has made."

"And the Cauldrons. There are more of them?"

She nods. "They're all over the world. Giant underground factories that build the machines, and they all respond to Hephaestus."

"So… it… is the one that's behind the Derangement."

"Yes, because humans hunt them for parts. So he started programming them to be aggressive, and I guess eventually resolved to making machines that could defend themselves, even seek out humans to attack."

"Like the Sawtooth and the Thunderjaw," he confirms.

"Yeah. It wouldn't be the case if Hephaestus'… master hadn't sacrificed herself to stop Hades when it tried to take control of the Spire. Now he only builds machines according to how he thinks he should."

"Hades is the same kind of mind?"

"Kind of, but his purpose was different," Aloy says, speaking slowly because she coming up with an accurate explanation on the fly. She manages to form her next words in her head before speaking them. "If the world… didn't develop correctly, Hades would wipe out everything so that there was nothing left, so that their master could start rebuilding the world again with a clean slate."

She stops to let the information sink in. Vale looks confused, but he remains silent for a long time.

"How many of these minds are there?" he finally says.

"Nine. I think."

"Only nine?"

"Yes, and all of them serve a purpose in forming the world."

"A world that robots had destroyed, like you said earlier," he points out, and she nods. "So how do we stop Hephaestus?"

"I'm not quite sure yet. But I need the Master Override. It's a device I used to destroy Hades with at the Spire. I'm not sure if I should use it on Hephaestus, because we still need his machines, but I would feel better knowing I had it on hand."

"So we need to go to Meridian. Then what?"

"I'm still working on that."

Vale leans back against the wall, having no more questions for her. Aloy can see his eyes darting, his mind thinking, trying make sense of this vital information. He now knew more than the average person probably ever would. She told Avad about Hades, but that was only for the sake of protecting his city. She was trusting Vale with this secret.

"Thank you for telling me," he finally speaks. "I think I understand things a little better now."

"Good. There is more, but I'll explain the rest later. We should get some rest. We need to be over the mountains and cross the dry lands before dusk tomorrow."

"Provided nothing gets in our way."

"Yeah."

Vale slips his Focus back over his ear.

"Did you ever figure out how to sync our Focuses together?" she asks.

"Still working on that," he responds, eyes now closed. Aloy smiled a little at his effort for trying, and then follows his example of getting sleep.

… … …

A storm is brewing when they get moving. Dark clouds block the sky and a vicious wind whips around the land towards the west. They would be traveling _with_ the storm, but it was the only path to take.

Vale is stiff from his wound, visibly stiff, but he doesn't complain about it and does his best to keep up with her when they sneak out of the old village after Aloy dispatches the Watchers. They meet their Striders at a crossroads, saddle up, and start up the steep hills ahead.

Aloy's hair whips around her face as she gazes up at the storm clouds. It was cold, and she can feel it in her bones that rain will be upon them soon, heavy and ice-cold. The only other outfit she brought with was her trusty shield weaver armour, but it wasn't much better at combating the weather than her Nora attire. She shivers when a strong gust of wind come from behind.

By the time they make it up to the narrow pass, they are already soaked to the bone in rainfall. The walls of Daytower aren't visible through the thick rainfall, but it won't be long before the silhouette of the fort appears before them.

They stop when they reach a part of the path that is cover by a large rock overhang, supported by a man-made column to keep it in place. Aloy grabs a lock of her hair and wrings out the water in it.

"It won't be much farther now. Daytower is just up ahead."

Vale shivers. The rain coats his armour and soaks through his clothes too. The armour plates on his helmet slide back, showing his face.

"Should we take shelter there? Let the storm pass?"

"It might not be a bad idea. It might delay us by a couple days, though. And I want to get to Meridian as soon as possible," she says.

"Let's give a last push to the fort. Then we can decide from there."

Aloy nods in agreement. "Okay."

They trudge along with a little more spring in their step. The path from here on is flat with one last dip before the Carja gates. Once they get behind the mountain, it would give them a little shelter from the wind.

Aloy can barely see the lights up in the towers of the fort walls by the time they get there. Against the backdrop of the light though, she can see the silhouettes of figures, the Carja soldiers who stand on patrol at Daytower. They had made it.

Two soldiers stand stationed on the ground in front of the gates. They stare at them in bewilderment as the two of them approach and dismount their machines.

"You don't see two strangers riding machines very often," one of them comments.

"Wait, aren't you the one who saved Meridian?" the other one asks, staring at Aloy. "Yeah! The machine rider who stopped the machine army!"

Aloy winced. Being recognized for her fame wasn't something she anticipated, and she knows that it's going to get worse when she runs into more people.

"Is Captain Balahn here? We need to get through," she demands, but the soldier she faced shakes his head.

"The Captain was called back to Meridian because of some trouble, but we'll let you through. The storm's only getting worse. You might want to take shelter here for a while."

"Thanks."

The soldier turns and pounds the gate with his fist. "Hey! Open up! We got more guests! And get these guys something to dry themselves with!"

The gates opens up slowly, revealing more soldiers behind the wall, the fabrics in their uniforms all drenched. Vale follows her up into Daytower's main courtyard, where all the merchant stalls are closed and draped to protect their precious wares from the rain. Most of the crowd is inside, but it is so packed that people were standing outside, under the cover of awnings and towers roofs. A soldier hands them each a towel to dry themselves as they join the crowd standing outside.

"Aloy?"

The huntress turns upon hearing her name and she is surprised to find another familiar face. A dark-skinned man in leather clothes, and an indistinguishable moustache. His attire suggests he's clearly Oseram.

"Burgrend?" Aloy says. The older man gives her a hearty smile.

"Well if it ain't the swift little fire-headed huntress. What are you doing out here in this miserable weather?"

"I could ask you the same thing. Things didn't go well in the Cut, I see."

The man huffs. "Nah, I thought it was time for a change of pace. Not many travellers come by Song's Edge anymore after the machines all calmed down. I could barely sell a stock of arrows to a hunter. I was losing profit, so I packed all my things came back down to _civilization_."

Aloy chuckles at the last word.

"What about your daughter?"

"Ah, she voted to stay. Said she wanted to study the 'Banuk style of weaponry' even more. I couldn't make her leave with me. She's all grown up; she can make her own decisions," Burgrend explains, but there's a side of disappointment in his complexion that Aloy sees.

"I'm sure that decision wasn't made easy. She'll miss you," she tells him, her voice soft. She recalls when she had first met the man. It wasn't mentioned by word, but Burgrend hinted that his family bond with his daughter was… civil, at best.

Burgrend offers a smile of his own. "I hope so."

A loud, metal scraping screech pierces the air, loud enough the make their ears hurt. The crowd panics, looking everywhere for the source of the noise.

Aloy sees Vale's Focus lit up, with the towel still draped over his damp hair. He notices where her attention was and says; "Something's coming in, fast."

"Where?"

The danger came from above. A machine, the size of a Trampler, landed in the middle of the courtyard, a pair of red headlights glowing through the rain. They flash towards the civilians and everyone screams.

A soldier bellows orders and several more soldiers form a line in front of the machine, some wielding spears and others bows. The machine screams, immensely loud.

"Everyone here is in danger," Aloy stresses. The crowd backs away from the machine as far as they can, but with the inside of the towers full, they were backed into a corner. If the machine had a chance to attack, dozens of people would be killed.

"Aloy…"

Vale's Focus is still lit. He's staring at the machine with keen intent; a hunter's gaze, she recognizes.

"That machine. It's…"

The new machine spreads its arms wide, revealing large, broad metal feathers with two turbo jets on each wing, just like a Stormbird's wings. The machine gives them one powerful flap and carries a bunch of soldiers with a gust of wind off the side of the tower.

"What is it, Vale?" she asks urgently. He turns to her.

"It's looking for you. It's got kill orders on you."

Aloy's eyes widen in slight horror, but then she glares at the machine. Another machine was after her.

"These people are in danger because of me. I can't let that stand."

Before she could even take a step forward, Vale grabs her shoulder.

"Now I know what you're thinking…"

She turns back to him. Whether she looks at him pleadingly or angrily, his face remains stoic when she met his eyes directly.

But he was quick to give her a upper quirk of his lips.

"And I'm right behind you."

She nods, and somehow feels stupid. _Of course_ he would help kill the machine that threatened innocent people. He was a machine hunter.

 _They_ were machine hunters.

They both drop their towels and run back into the rain to join the Carja soldiers. Burgrend shouts after them, but his words are lost in the clamour of rainfall and fighting. Aloy draws her spear and Vale seizes his shield and hammer.

Aloy taps her Focus. The new machine is winged with a large body and two hind legs. It has a long thin tail, and, like with the machine before, doesn't have any weaknesses her Focus could identify. On top of its head are two large dishes with two antennae sprouting from the back of them, either signal receivers or…

"Sound amplifiers! That's why it sounds so loud," she realizes. She turns to Vale. His helmet was already on and the blue visors glow faintly. The machine scrapes its massive claws against the ground, churning up chunks of brick and rock their way. She stands behind Vale as he lifts his shield to block the rubble.

"What does that helmet of yours do?" she asks.

"Dampens harsh light and sound. That's about it."

So that was it. It explained why Vale was unaffected by the transforming light of the machine back in the Cauldron.

"Can you get in front of that machine? Take the brunt of those sound attacks?"

"You wanna explain to me a plan before I throw myself in front of it?"

Aloy eyes the large platform that hangs from the crane over the canyon. She swore it was still there from when she passed through Daytower months ago. It has more crates piled on top of it, and looks heavy.

"Yeah, but you need to distract it for me."

"For how long?"

"Until I can make my plan work."

"That not—" Vale blocks another avalanche of debris when it's launched at them. Aloy uses the chance to scurry her way around the fight.

" _Priority target located. Eliminate Elisabet Sobeck!"_ the machine says in a drone-like tone, drastically different compared to the menacing size of it.

"Oh no you don't!" Vale shouts and slaps the machine in the face with a crack of his electric whip. The machine hisses at him.

Good. Aloy runs for the platform. The Carja soldiers start to form a circle around the machine to keep it at bay. It doesn't seem to want to fly away.

There is a docking bay, half constructed. Aloy jumps through the unfinished frame until she gets close enough to jump for the platform, which hangs just above her head, a few feet away in open air above the canyon. She leaps as high as she can and manages to get one hand on the corner of the platform. She pulls herself up and quickly skims over the pulley system that keeps the platform in the air. There is no way she could move it.

The battle before her rages on. The machine screeches, causing soldiers to drop their weapons and cover their ears, but Vale isn't bother by it. He fires two cannon shots at the components on top of the machine's head, blasting holes through them. It screeches again, but not as loud this time. It swipes at him with claws on the end of its wings but the mercenary jumps out of the way.

Aloy caught a faint light swinging about. The machine's tail has two sparker components on it, covered with protective plating. It isn't within reach, but hovers close to the hanging crate of building supplies.

"If I can snag its tail to this crate and make it fall, the machine with fall with it."

Aloy grabs her rope. She's never had to make a noose before, and her rope is equipped with a grappling hook at the end. But Rost taught her many things, one of which was how to fully utilize a rope. She fashions one quickly and ties the other end to the supports of the crate that keeps it in the air. She then waits until the machine's tail is steady.

She misses the first time. The machine lunges at Vale and sends him skidding across the stone. With two fangs bared, it raises its head to bring them down on him.

Aloy throws her rope again, this time snaring the tail almost perfectly. Realizing this, she quickly jumps off the platform to solid ground, turns and shoots an arrow at the cable.

Aiming her bow was like second nature, and so the cable snapped in two with a precise shot. The rope cracks one of the pulleys of the crane and the metal crate plummets into the canyon, pulling the machine with it before it could bite down on Vale. The machine slides past her, giving one last pathetic attempt to snatch her before falling off the side. Aloy watches it fall until it hits the ground with a loud bust that confirms that it was dead.

The crowd in Daytower cheers, and she flinches. All the merchants and Carja soldiers whoop and yell in victory.

"Praise the Alighted One! She saved us all!"

"Ugh, from Anointed to Alighted," she groans. She turns as Vale approaches her, and for once she can see that he's breathing heavily. "Are you alright?"

His helmet plating removes itself. "A little sore in the back side, but I'll live." He points down the cliff. "That was impressive."

"Yeah, well…" she shrugs, not sure how to take his compliment. "It's my job."

Vale huffs, but he smiles, and standing there in the rain looking down at their kill, it kind of felt… _good_.

"That machine was here because of me, and it put everyone here at risk. It wouldn't have happened if we had kept moving."

"Don't blame yourself for what happened," Vale says.

"I know, but they remain in danger so long as I'm here," she replies solemnly.

"So you're saying…"

"Alighted!" a soldier calls out and approaches them. "Please, staying here for the night. Don't have many accommodations available, but we can clear one out for you. You saved all these civilians. It's the least we can do."

"Thanks… but that won't be necessary. We have to keep moving."

The soldier stares at her, obviously surprised. Vale did too, but he nods in understanding. "You want to travel in the middle of this storm? There's no way!"

"Trust me, it's better this way. We'll gather our things and be on our way," she says, getting only a little impatient.

"If that's how it must be. At least let us provide you with provisions for your journey."

Aloy was about to speak her mind and get them moving, but Vale acts first. "We'll take them, gladly. Bring them to the gate for us."

The soldier bows and leaves them. The two of them leave to find their Striders, both huddled under the cover of the gate's overhang. Their bags were draped, but still soaked and needed replacing with a dry one. Once that was done, they turn their steers to the exit gate on the other side of the fort. There, two Carja soldiers wait for them, one of them holding two boxes of traveling supplies and the other holding a bow.

"The merchants wanted to give their thanks and gave these for free," one of the soldiers says as he hands one box to each of them.

"And this is from a man named Burgrend. Said he knew you," the other adds, handing Aloy a bow. She doesn't recognize the make. It isn't Banuk, or Carja. In fact, the symbols etched across the bow's arc and gleaming silver metal that make up the handle aren't like anything she has seen before. But she can feel it's stiffness in her hands. It was a powerful weapon.

"Tell everyone we said thank you," Aloy replies.

"We will. May the light pierce the dark sky and light your path, Nora."

The soldiers push the gates open to reveal a dark, stormy world ahead. Aloy and Vale urge their machines forward, towards Meridian.

* * *

Next week, a little 'side quest' is in story for our travelling pair. See you then!


	7. Side-Traveler's Grave

**Side-Traveler's Grave**

-The pair come across a new bandit camp and a secret that lies hidden within their base…

* * *

Luckily for the two of them, the rain and wind subside early the next day, leaving only grey clouds behind. The storm had slowed them, however, and it was obvious that they weren't going to make it to Meridian by the end of today, which annoyed Aloy slightly. But she realized if they had stayed in Daytower, they would have been delayed further.

The new weapon she had received from Burgrend in Daytower is more powerful than she realizes. The complex contraption that tightens the bowstring can be adjusted and comes with a circular sights mounted on the handle. It's hard to pull the string back, but once it was fully drawn, she finds it easy to hold it. All these things Vale points out, because he recognizes the design.

"Strange," Vale mutters as he observes the bow. "This looks like something from my homeland. How did someone from the west obtain one of these? Anyways, you'll probably have to craft your arrows with different materials. Swap the wood for metal."

According to him, wooden arrow shafts couldn't handle the pressure of the bowstring; the shaft would just splitter in her hands. Metal rods had to be used. It meant hunting for new materials, likely ones that merchants around here didn't stock, but it would be worth the firepower. Vale recalled a few times he had seen the bow in action: _holes_ in body parts; metal plates _shattered_.

Aloy recognizes the hill they are coming up on. The trail is within sight of a Thunderjaw that loiters in the open plain to the right ahead. The group of highlands to their left had once housed a bandit camp, long since cleaned up by the people who choose to move in after she and Nil had killed the bandits all those months ago. She can see the first houses at the gates to the new village are well built. They were beginning stone construction, with a couple crates loaded with brick huddled together under a makeshift shelter to protect it from the storm that rolled through. They must be receiving help from the city. This was Carja territory, after all.

She tries to ignore the urge to find them a nice place to sleep under a roof and a warm bed, but since she was on Hephaestus' black list, staying in settlements was not a choice. She expects to have to navigate around the Thunderjaw's territory as well. They were coming up on it soon, and she'd rather keep the giant machine fighting to a minimum.

But yet there is no machine bulk to see when they reach the top of the hill, no quaking footsteps of the machine or red lights of any kind. Instead, what she finds annoys her even more.

Black smoke rising into the air, poorly made walls lined with wooden spikes and machine parts scattered on the ground.

"That doesn't look good," she hears Vale say behind her.

"No, it doesn't," she agrees. "What happened to the Thunderjaw? It was supposed to patrol this area."

"Maybe the bandits forced it out," Vale proposes, but she snorts in response.

"Bandits can't fight a Thunderjaw, even if there were a dozen of them," she says in a half-serious tone. Some bandits couldn't even aim a bow properly. Vale pulls his machine up next to hers and points ahead.

"Well maybe these aren't your ordinary bandits."

Ahead, close to an opening in the wall, stood several machine trophies mounted high up on pikes. The biggest of them all, Aloy recognizes, is the head of a Thunderjaw.

So that's what happened to it.

Her first thought is to find a way around them so they won't get spotted. But then she remembers passing the former bandit camp-turned-village just several feet behind them. She wants to keep moving, but with the bandits so close to the new village, they run the risk of being attacked.

"We can't let this go, Vale. If they realize there's a village right around the corner, they'll pillage it for loot and hostages," she says as she dismounts her ride. She activates her Focus and can see a good number of people highlighted in orange all around the camp.

Vale lowers himself to the ground and does the same. "No, I guess we can't. Though it shouldn't be too hard. Bandits are easy work compared to machines."

She snorts. "Try not to sound too confident."

With a _tsk_ , Vale smirks. "Do you know what I did before I started killing machines for a living? I killed bandits for a living. These guys are as good as dead."

"Hm, do you know why there aren't any bandit camps in the Nora lands?" Aloy shoots back, a daring grin on her face. "It's because I booted them all out."

Vale leans back and eyes her up like some kind of predator.

"You wanna make a challenge out of this? Fine. Whoever kills the most bandits has to cook for the rest of the trip."

Aloy hates the idea of it, that betting on who could take the most lives was a thing to take likely, like a sport. It reminds her too much of Nil's unsettling attitude, but these bandits threaten the nearby village. They were in danger, and she had never backed down from a challenge before.

"Alright, you're on. I'll take the left side. You take the right. We reconvene at the centre and see who wins."

"How do I know you won't lie about it?" Vale says. She let out an angered huff, but she wonders the same thing about him.

"There's a counter on your Focus. Use that," she snaps.

"Fine. I'll even let you have the first shot," Vale replies.

"Oh no. Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean you get to take it easy on me!"

"I never said that. I was merely giving you the courtesy!"

"I don't need your damn courtesy—"

A fire arrow lands at their feet, startling both of them. They both look up and see the bandits mobilizing, shouting at each other. A couple of them flood out of the front entrance and run in their direction.

"Great, so much for a sneak attack," Aloy sighs.

"Who needs stealth when you got armour?" Vale replies, pounding his fist against his chest. "I'll take the centre. You can go in which ever direction you want," he says, and rushes past her to meet the bandits head on. Aloy shakes her head and watches as he charges forward with his shield ready.

She's about to yell after him but Vale springs into action like nothing she's ever seen before, sliding into his first target with his shield and blocking another attack almost without looking. She likes to think that it's the bandits who have never proven to be that much of a challenge in a fight, but her mercenary companion weaves his movements and attacks together in a fashion that suggests that he's _very much_ done this plenty of times. He expertly parries sharp-bladed weapon's away from him with his shield and strikes with his hammer when there's an opening. She's seen a hammer in action before; Erend wielded one, and skillfully so.

But Vale's style was different. It was like he was _meant_ to be holding that hammer. It twists in his hands and slams against heads and torsos one after the other. Whatever his masters had taught him, it was clear that Vale knew what he was doing.

Aloy snaps herself out of her thoughts before she can be caught off guard and fires an arrow at one of the sentries stood up on one of the towers, nailing her shot right between the eyes of the cutthroat. She rushes up to the tower and climbs up to the sniper's platform to get a better view inside the camp.

A few more bandits are rushing out to meet Vale, while others stay back to get ready. While they were preoccupied, she would have the chance to take them out. Maybe the element of surprise wasn't so lost to her.

From where she stands, she manages to kill three bandits before they realize where the shots are coming from. Some of them fire back, but Aloy takes cover behind one of the posts that give the tower a roof. She grabs her blast sling, which she thankfully remembered this time, and lobs out a few shots. The explosions send bandits and dirt flying into the air, and she switches back to her bow to pick off those that had survived.

Meanwhile, Vale had succeeded in killing the bandits around him. Bodies litter the ground around him. He runs for the entrance as Aloy lowers herself from the tower. She catches sight of an all too familiar contraption; an alarm. It isn't set off, but a bandit was approaching it. She fires an arrow into his shoulder and another into his gut, and then shoots another through the sack that holds the blaze fluid, spilling it onto the ground so that nobody could use it.

She delves further into the camp. Bandits hide themselves in every corner to try and stop them, but with her Focus she can see them and avoid surprise attacks. She never wastes a single arrow, always landing her shots in fatal areas of the body as bandits before her fall. Going to war against the Eclipse must have magnified her human hunting abilities.

Or Nil was rubbing off on her. She really hoped not.

As she rounds the corner following some fleeing bandits, she comes to a dead stop and observes a strange sight. The bandits had been doing some construction in their own base. A tunnel had been burrowed deep into the rock, blasted away by bombs or some other heavy-duty means. A wooden structure is built around the entrance and a door that the bandits ware running into.

Aloy hears a scream and sees to her left a bandit fly onto the ground unconscious, and Vale appears shortly after. He too stops in his tracks when he sees the structure.

"Woah…" he says quietly. He finds Aloy as she stares back.

"Looks like you were right, Vale. These aren't your ordinary bandits," she responds.

"I mean, it was supposed to be a joke."

"What do you think they're doing in there?"

"Bandits? Nothing good, and I wager they want to keep it a secret with this big fancy door of theirs," he answers.

"We should look into it. Could be bad for the other villages," Aloy replies and they both walk up to the door.

"What's your kill count at?" he asks casually.

"Really?" Vale shrugs, but she taps her Focus anyway. "Twelve. And you?"

"Fourteen. Looks like I'm winning." His helmet covers his face, but Aloy could hear the smugness in his voice.

"Don't think you've won just yet," she reminds him and pulls on the door. It hardly budges, and a jingle of metal chains can be heard behind it. "Looks like they locked it up pretty good. Think your hammer can get through it?"

"Oh yeah."

Aloy steps back as Vale mounts his shield on his back and grasps his hammer with both hands. In one mighty swing, he manages to obliterate the door, flinging chunks of wood down the narrow tunnel. Aloy is prepared to meet a wave of enemy bandits behind the door, but the tunnel is empty, save for a few torch lights. It's still relatively dark inside.

Vale steps inside first with his shield in front. Aloy doesn't complain. If this was an ambush, they needed something to hide behind.

They creep along slowly, both of them anticipating an attack at any moment. The tunnel went on for several feet and curves a little. Aloy can see light around the bend, but it's hard to tell what is causing it. She can't hear any noises aside from their footsteps. It only meant trouble.

What they finally come upon she can hardly comprehend. A large metal structure stands tall in a massive cavern. Several large plates made the structure look round, and a platform around the base of it makes it look like a flower just before blooming. Light trickles in from a crack in the cavern ceiling, where it shines down on the pristine metal and scatters it throughout the entire room.

"What is that?" Vale asks, right before a fire arrow clanks against his shield. Aloy gets as close to him as she could.

"Kill them! This machine is ours to loot!" someone shouts.

"Vale we can't let them have that machine," Aloy hisses as another arrow bounces off his shield.

"Why? We don't even know what that thing is!" he argues.

"Exactly, which is why we should clear them out and found out ourselves before they do something really bad."

"Alright, I see your point. I'm gonna move ahead. There's cover to your left."

On Vale's signal, they move out of the tunnel, where large wooden containers are placed on either side of them. Aloy dives left as Vale goes right, planting his shield into the ground. He shifts the handle and pulls the cannon from its place. It was detachable.

As more arrows rain down on them, Vale glances back at the tunnel.

"What's the chance that they'll have reinforcements coming from behind us?"

"None. I disabled their alarm," Aloy replies as she shoots a retaliation arrow, piercing an enemy right through the heart.

"They had an alarm?"

She ducks behind cover as two fire arrows zip past her. "Yeah, they did. Haven't you done this before?"

"I don't usually encounter bandits intuitive enough to have an _alarm!_ Or dig up ancient machinery…"

"That's not ancient…" Aloy taps her Focus to view the battlefield. As bandits continue to fire at them, she notices a few blaze containers sitting on the far side of the cavern. It must have been what they used to dig out this place. Sh can't hit it at this angle. They need to get closer.

"Can you cover me?" she cries over the rain of arrows. One of the bandits has a firespitter weapon and the missiles are whizzing past them.

"Don't think I can. There's too many of them for me to keep your back, unless…" Vale thinks for a second as dirt blasts in their faces. The missiles are getting closer. "Switch me places!"

After they both fire their weapons a couple times, Aloy slides underneath as Vale jumps over her, swapping cover spots. She leans against the back of the shield as an arrow bounces off it.

"Take the shield! It'll give you cover," he instructs. He fires more shots and begins to reload his weapon and Aloy realizes that this is her chance. She yanks the shield from the ground – it's definitely heavier than it looks – and moves around the crates. She can see bandits hiding behind cover on wooden frames built around the cavern walls and she can spot the one holding the firespitter. She sets the shield back down and pulls a tearblast arrow from her quiver.

She aims for the feet, or anywhere remotely close to the bandit. But instead her arrow finds its mark right on the bandit's face mask instead and blasts it to bits. The bandit staggers back, but before he can recover a bolt hits him in the bare face. Aloy glances back and sees Vale hide behind cover, but his head remains in sight and he gives her an acknowledging nod. Aloy nods back carries the shield forward.

Any bandits who come after her are shot by Vale before they can get closer, and Aloy finds a good angle to shoot the blaze stockpile. She sets a fire arrow to her bow, predicts its trajectory and fires it from behind the shield.

A massive explosion rocks the cavern. Fire rushes out everywhere and engulfs the bandits, including the machine that stands there. The heat reminds Aloy of the Carja sun on a particularly harsh day, except this is a lot worse. A crushing heat waves blows over her and rushes out the tunnel where Vale is, knocking the crates over and anything else that isn't anchored to the ground.

Aloy gets to her feet. Flames are everywhere, and any evidence that bandits once made an outpost here was gone, burnt to a crisp or on fire to turn into ash later.

The only thing that still stands is the machine in the middle.

Vale appears next to her.

"I think you win our challenge."

She smiles victoriously, but the feeling is quickly replaced with curious wonder as she approaches the machine, it's metal untouched from the forces of the explosion.

"I think I've seen something like this before," she says.

"You have?" Vale inquires as he picks up his shield, knocked over from the fire blast.

"Yeah…" Aloy reaches out to the machine, to feel its smooth metal. But when she does, she hears several clicks come from deep within the machine. The metal plates move and turn in a spiral as they spread themselves out like petals of a flower to reveal…

"A tree?" Vale deadpans. A single, medium sized tree stands in the centre of the machine. The base of it is buried in brown dirt or some kind of compost and the bark is as stiff as any other tree found in the wild. The leaves are bright green and perfectly formed, not dead or chewed away by bugs.

"Not just any tree," Aloy says and reaches up to pluck one of the many fruits that hang from the branches. "An apple tree."

She takes a bite out of it. It was cold and fresh. The juices run down her chin as she tosses the apple to Vale to sample.

"Why would a machine be harbouring a tree?" He wonders, examining the fruit before taking a bite out of the apple with a satisfying crush.

"I think this machine was meant to spread this type of tree around the area. I've run into this type of machine before. Metal flowers that pollinate the world with plants and herbs. Each one I found came with a code. This machine probably does the same thing," she explains.

"You think the bandits knew what it was?" Vale asks as Aloy finds a small node for her Focus to scan. In it are several lines of directives and messages, similar to a Tallneck's operations log.

"I don't think so. They were probably going to try and sell it or strip it for parts, not that it would have given them much…"

"But at least they can't hurt anyone else."

Aloy finishes scanning the codes and snatches another apple from the tree before walking away from the machine. It closes back up on its own, sealing the tree.

"Shall we get out of here? If I recall, you're in charge of supper now."

"With all those apples you won't have to eat tonight, but I'll whip something up," Vale replies as the two of them walk out of the tunnel and leave the now empty bandit camp.

* * *

Pay attention, because this isn't just a filler chapter. A part of this chapter is important and I might be writing a whole sequel story based around it, so stay tuned!


	8. Journey to the Claim Pt 1

**Journey to the Claim Pt. 1**

-Aloy and Vale reach Meridian and come across an angry mob at the palace gates. Aloy thinks they need to investigate.

* * *

The storm system turns out to be much smaller than they realize. By the time they reach the main bridge of Meridian, nearly three days later, the dark clouds had passed overhead and clear blue skies took their place once again. It left the roads soggy and their clothes wet and cold, but the chirp of birds early in the morning is a welcome sound to Aloy's ears.

Vale had kept to his word and cooked their meals for the reminder of the trip, and boy, did he eat a _lot_. They still had leftover provisions from the two boars he managed to hunt, and he cuts them to salvage the most of the meat as possible, almost ridiculously so. He obviously knew his animals and had done this several times before. Most of the time Aloy couldn't even finish her meals, but she found it was better than not eating enough. Every night she had gone to bed with a full stomach. She appreciated it.

The setup at the bridge entrance has not changed at all. Merchants looking to bring their wares into city set up their stalls here, where public traffic is more dense than any of the other entrances into the city. Aloy takes in a breath of all the scents she can gather. Most are pleasant, either fresh fragrances of delicate ornaments or the spices of food mixtures. Here at the gates it was the freshest, and she couldn't get enough of it.

The bridge itself, however, is a different story.

People crowd around the Carja city guards, hassling them with what sounded like questions, but too many voices overlapped each other and came too quickly for her to single out one of them and try to figure out what they wanted. A guard stops them at the start of the bridge.

"Halt! What is your business in the city?" he asks.

"What? Why do you want to know?" Aloy asks back.

"Security reasons. Every civilian is to be questioned and searched to avoid any possible threats to the city," the guard answers. This throws Aloy in for a loop. What reasons did the Carja have to search every man and woman looking to enter the city. Had someone attacked them? Aloy hasn't kept in touch with anyone from the city while she was staying with the Nora, so anything could have happened after the battle against the Eclipse.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" Aloy says, deciding to mention it in hopes it could get her through quicker. This was one of those times where Aloy wishes her fame fame could come to use. Clearly this guard didn't recognize her as the famous Alighted of the Sun. Usually they would just let her right through without any trouble.

"No. Should I?"

"I'm the Alighted One," she says with abhorrence, disguised as cocky boldness. "I saved your king from an assassination and stopped the Eclipse from invading Meridian. I'm the opposite of a threat."

Immediately, the guard twitches and bows.

"The Saviour of Meridian! My apologies. You may pass."

She nods and walks past the guard. Vale was about to ask as she sensed, so she tells him; "Sometimes it nice to be famous. Vale?"

He isn't walking beside her. When she turns around, he's back with the guard, his hands held up as the soldier searches his person. He lifts his hands and shrugs at her. Aloy sighs.

When he catches up, they cross the bridge to the city.

"You know, I've never actually been in the city before. I only passed through the village at the bottom of the mesa, where there was a lot of construction," her companion mentions.

She nods at this. "Most of the village there was destroyed in the attack, including the elevators. The city itself was mostly untouched, though, and it's vastly different than any other place the Carja have built. You might find it… a lot to take in."

"I don't know about that. There are plenty of big cities where I'm from, and they're just as grand as Meridian. But I think Meridian is the only city I've seen that's built so high up."

"Some of the priests say that they wanted to get as close to the sun as possible," she fills in. Vale snickers.

"So they could what? Get a better sunburn? I told you, they're crazy Carja." At this, Aloy laughs lightly, and Vale decides to change the topic. "You mentioned you saved the king once. Do you know him?"

"Yes. I warned him about the Eclipse and gave his people time to prepare. He's a good man, honest."

"I don't hear that about nobles very often," Vale replies. He looks out at the valley below, where the maize lands were. "My lands have nobles as well, but most of them never leave the castle, or care what happen outside of them. Their advisors and armies do most of the dirty work."

"Well, Avad will be a nice change of pace for you, then," Aloy concludes. "Once we meet him, you'll see."

At that, Vale turns his gaze back at her and raises an eyebrow. "We need an audience with the king?"

She nods. "Ever since the battle with the Eclipse, all visits to the Spire are being controlled. You can't see it up close without Avad's approval."

"So why do we need to see it?"

He really did ask a lot of questions.

"That's where I left the Master Override. It's been sitting there ever since battle, and Avad has reinforced the defences around the Spire, so to get to it, we need to see him first."

"I see."

It's her hope that Avad will grant them what they want. He was a reasonable man, and considering he how had treated her upon their first meeting, on top of all the favours she had done for him, like saving Prince Iteman from the Shadow Carja and stopping Dervahl from destroying the city, she was more than confident that the Sun King would listen to them.

When they finally step into the city, however, Aloy is shocked to find even more crowds gathering in the streets, surrounding the Carja city guards and harassing them with questions, taking up enough space to block their shortest route to the palace. They would have to take the long way around.

Aloy keeps her ears open as they pass the masses of people, listening for anything in particular that might sound interesting. Crowds like this didn't gather in Meridian without cause, and with they they acted, she sensed an air of hostility. Something was stirring here.

She picks up only bits and pieces, phrases that make no sense when she heard them one after the other, but things like 'attacks' and 'machines' make her a little edgy. There were whisperings about the king as well, insulting him or calling him out, among a number of things. Of course she didn't think any of these were true, but there had to be a reason for all of this discontent.

Inaction. Avad was hesitating with something. It had to be. It was the same things they were saying when Ersa was murdered.

She marches along quickly now, no longer interested in their words. Vale keeps up with her, not questioning her purposeful strides. Either he senses the same thing and restraining his queries, or he hasn't figured it out yet.

They circle around the sun ring at the centre of the city, bypassing the Hunter's Lodge. Aloy half expects Talanah to show up and invite her in. And while it would be nice to see her again, among the whisperings about the king she heard ' big hunting trip' and 'to the south'. She didn't remember who lived in the south, but she knew that Talanah would likely be leading this party as the Sunhawk. After defeating Redmaw and battling the Deathbringer by her side at the Spire, nothing seemed like too much of the challenge for her. Looks like she wouldn't be seeing Talanah anytime soon.

They pass by the merchants' collective area until they came upon the familiar entrance of the palace bridge. It is also blocked by a crowd of angry civilians, the guards keeping them from flooding the entrance. None of the civilians carry any fruit to throw, but Aloy expects things to get far worse than just fruit tossing with the way they shouted angry threats.

"Looks like we can't get in," Vale observes.

"But we _need_ to see Avad, though."

Just then the crowd backs up as someone appears from behind the Carja guards. Aloy recognized him immediately; grey hair pulled back, royal blue silks and a calm expression that spoke for decades of political wisdom.

"Ladies and gentlemen of Meridian," Marad speaks with a loud, but neutral voice, "I speak on behalf of the fourteenth Sun King. His Luminance has requested that you all consider your worries and concerns received and noted for discussion regarding recent events with the the machines. His radiance, King Avad is considering every method possible that may solve issue quickly and with as little bloodshed as possible."

"What about the Vanguard! Where are they?" someone shouts.

"Yeah, they should be here, protecting us!" a woman agrees. Marad raises his hands as the crowd grows into murmurs and shouts again.

"The Vanguard is doing their duty to protect those whose need for protection is most critical. As it stands, the Carja military is seen fit to shelter our sacred city from any and all threats as of now. Other means are being discussed, of course, but we assure you that we are doing the best we can. With that, may I remind you all that we are still in the middle of reconstruction efforts and we don't want to spread ourselves to thinly should a crisis occur."

The crowd rises up in murmurs and whispers only this time, some heads are nodding in agreement and understanding. Marad almost looks pleased with himself.

"Now if everyone is in agreement, we ask you to continue with your daily chores and let our Sun King decide what is best for us. If you have any other concerns regarding other issues, please talk to our guards so they can fill out a report."

A sense of finalization fills the air as the civilians talk among themselves again. Aloy sees her chance and walks up to Marad. He is ready to turn back to the palace, but he somehow senses her presence and faces her instead, a warm, greeting smile on his features.

"Aloy of the Nora, what a pleasant surprise."

"Blameless Marad. If anyone can calm a crowd, it would be you." The smiles and nods his head at the compliment. "What's going on here? Why are these people so angry?" she asks. Marad look around, and gestures for her to follow.

"I think it's best we discuss it in more private company. His Radiance will want to see you. It has been quite some time." He eyes Vale then, looking him up and down like Vale wasn't watching him do so. "Who's this?"

"Oh, uh, this is Vale. He's a…"

"Machine hunter," he finishes, and even has the forethought to bow a little. "Accomplished machine hunter."

"I see. And you have a similar curious device on your ear as Aloy does," Marad notes. "Hm, perhaps the Sun King should see both of you. He might have use of your skills."

"That's what I was hoping for," Aloy nods.

"Follow me."

The three of them march over the bridge to the palace and walk up the steps to the main tower. No long lines of noblemen stand in wait along the steps this time, most of the path clear except for a few handmaidens and servants of the palace. When they reach the top of the stairs, they turn and walk to the back area, where a couch and table are set up in the shade of an awning hanging high above them.

She first sees Avad talking with another advisor on one of the lower landings to the side. He is partially facing them, and when he catches a glimpse of her, he instantly smiles. Whatever they were talking about, he is able to convince the other person to continue their conversation at a later time in just a few shorts words and makes his way up to them. His magnificent sun robes are gone, leaving only his royal vest and crown.

"Aloy, what a surprise. Your light is a most welcome sight, my friend," he greets. Aloy smiles kindly and nods to him. "What has brought you to the Sundom?"

"I was about to ask what brought you all the trouble. Your people aren't saying nice things," she replies. Avad lips curl back in a grimace and he exhales are heavy sigh.

"It is a most unfortunate situation."

Marad steps forward. "I've brought Aloy and her companion here because they might be able to provide some aid, your majesty. They will want to hear what has happened," he informs them.

"And that I will tell them. Thank you, Marad. You may continue your duties as before," Avad dismisses him with a wave of his hand. The older man bows and turns on a heel to attend his, no doubt, many other tasks, leaving just the three of them. That's when the lack of other bodies catches Aloy's attention. There would normally be guards posted throughout the palace, particularly the two that stood on either side of the door, but the spaces are vacant, and she can't see any more from where she is standing.

"I thought the struggles were over after that fateful battle," Avad starts, bringing Aloy's focus back to him. He is staring longingly, she realizes, in the direction of the Spire. He turns back to face them as he continues, "but it seems they are only just beginning. I've no doubt you've heard some concerning topics when you entered the city."

"A few," Aloy says. "What are these attacks that people are talking about?"

When Avad spoke, it was with the voice a hundred years old. He was spent of his usual… sunny radiance, as the Carja would have put it. "The machines are getting worse. They do not simply attack to defend themselves anymore. Our envoys are finding it difficult to travel to other settlements without interference of angry machines. They attack with spite."

"They seek out humans," Vale confirms. The king nods as Vale eyes him.

"You have seen this, then? In the past, these were only special cases, when hunters provoked herds or caused a disturbance in their routine activity. That does not seem to be the case anymore," Avad says with a heavy sigh. "We've lost nearly a dozen envoys to the machine's wrath. Other communities have reported more attacks in the past few months than the whole of my reign for the past two years. If this continues, whole tribes will perish, and I see know way of stopping it."

Aloy catches the glare that Vale is shooting her way. What they had experienced from the machines clearly isn't exclusive to them, it seemed. Aloy figured this, though, but the way Avad spoke about it made it sound much more dire.

"My other concern is my Vanguard," he continues.

"I noticed there were no Vanguards in the city, or in the palace or… anywhere! Where are they all?" Aloy says.

"I'm afraid they went north, on an expedition I fear may be lost. Several men have been killed, injured or missing, including Erend."

Aloy's heart nearly stops. Avad lowers his head to the ground in unspoken shame. "What? Erend is missing?"

Avad then waves for them to follow. He walks down to one of the lower balconies that overlooks the great aqueducts that saps water from the north river to the palace. Avad plants both hands on the railing as he gazes out at the horizon.

"We have not heard of Erend for several days. Those of his party who did report back said they were separated by machines of immense strength, and never before seen."

"Why did they go north?" Vale asks. Aloy was thinking the same thing, but couldn't form the words in her mouth. All she was thinking about was Erend. Avad turns and faces them.

"To investigate. Rumours of a new machine spread from the Claim; a beast of terrible strength that was born out of the sky. It attacked many homes in the Claim and made its way south. My Vanguard marched out to meet it, but I've heard nothing only up until a few days ago, when only one man from that expedition made it back alive," he explains.

"And the rest haven't returned…"

The king nods grimly. "I would send for them, but my men are stretched to a breaking point. We are still rebuilding from the attack by the Eclipse, and with increased machine activity, I've doubled the strength of the guard in the lower village and the walls," he turns to Aloy. "And I've posted more men at the Spire. There is no more power I can provide lest I leave some of my people defenceless."

"Then we'll do it," Aloy bursts out without meaning to. When she realizes what she had done, she decides to go with it. "Tell us what you need, Avad. Vale and I can handle ourselves on the road. The machines aren't a problem for us."

Avad stares into her eyes with a studied face. She knows that he knew that she could take care of herself. When you stop a whole army from tearing a city apart, people start to expect that of you.

"Find my Vanguard. If there's any chance that they are alive, I need them brought back here, to reenforce my soldiers. I'm not worried about this new machine anymore. I can worry about it after I know my people are safe."

"Don't worry about the machine, Avad. If anything, we'll kill it before it even gets close."

For the first time since they arrived, Avad smiles. "I have no doubt of that, my machine riding friend. You can talk to Derrick, he was part of that expedition. You'll find him here in the palace, below in the infirmary. He was nearly delirious when we found him."

"Sounds like a good place to start," Aloy replies. She nods to Vale and they turn to leave.

"Aloy!" The king calls suddenly. She halts and turns her head as he warns, "these are dark times. Shadows hide in every corner of the Sundom and the realms beyond. I know of your skills, your courage, but I warn you to take cautious measures. Erend was… is, my best man. I can't stand the thought of losing him, but I would be beside myself if I lost you as well."

Aloy gives him her most heartfelt smile. "We will, Avad. And we'll come back with Erend, I promise."

"Then let the light guide you, and my prayers go with you."

Aloy and Vale leave the king's quarters to find the last remnant of the Vanguard. A servant shows them to the infirmary, located in the inner structure of the palace, and Aloy realizes she has never seen the inside before. They enter a long hallway under the palace that stretches the entirety of the mesa from one side to the other. The walls were lined with pillars for structural support and in between each space is a decorative tapestry or a door, either leading to corridors or any other matter of room Aloy couldn't imagine needing.

About a third of the way down, they enter a vast room, and she is shocked at what she sees.

Most of the sick beds are full, occupied by the sick or the injured… mostly the injured. Soldiers of the Carja army are fixed in bandages stained red, casts or wrapping. It looks like they all been through war, when really Aloy suspects it was because of the rampancy of the machines. All these people, suffering because of the Derangement. It was horrific.

Aloy and Vale are guided to one of the beds in the far corner of the room occupied by a man with casts over his leg and arm, and his side is padded with bandages already soiled. His head is wrapped up too, slightly covering his left eye. It was clear that this man had narrowly avoided death, and his blank stare into nothingness only served to make the scene look even more sobering. Aloy glances quickly at Vale, his lips straightened in a grim line.

"Derrick?" Aloy greets. She goes to sit on the side of his bed, but the man jumps and screams and she springs back to her feet. He calms quickly, but she decides to remain standing.

"What? Oh, you're the Nora girl that the Carja keep raving about," the man recognizes.

"Yeah, I'm the one," she replied flatly.

"And the one Erend won't shut up about…"

"That too."

Derrick glares at her. "What are you doing here? And who's the other guy."

Vale remains stoic and silent as Aloy introduces him. "We want your help. I need you to tell me everything you can about this new machine that you were sent to kill."

"Tsk, you want to go out there and find that machine? How about this: don't. The whole Vanguard got wiped out by that thing. What are two hunters gonna do?"

"Hopefully bring the rest of the Vanguard home," Aloy says, trying to ignore the impact of his words.

"Don't bother. They're all probably dead," Derrick snips. Aloy can detect the scorn in his voice, which in turn burns her cheeks as her hands curl into fists. She refuses to believe they were all dead. That Erend was dead, not after surviving the Eclipse.

"Look, I wouldn't be here if I didn't think I could do something about it. Meridian is weak and the machines are getting dangerous. If there's a chance that even one of them is alive out there, I'm going to find them. So quit your gloating and tell me where you last saw them," she hisses. Silence fills the air, and she realizes that everyone in the infirmary must have heard her. Her face heats up in embarrassment, but she keeps her face straight as she stares at Derrick impatiently. The man sighs and nods.

"Alright, sorry. I was… mourning. Seeing all my brothers getting murdered kind of changed me, you know?"

"I'm sorry for your loss," Aloy speaks with a soft voice. "But I need you to tell me what happened."

Derrick clears his throat. "Well, we went north, past Pitchcliff further into the Claim. A band of two dozen men armed to the gullet with Oseram steel. Some of our men were pretty good trackers, so we managed to follow a trail. It wasn't hard. The machine left nothing but destruction in its wake. We followed it to a ravine just past the mountains and cornered it. That was a big mistake."

"Why's that?"

"Because it wasn't alone. There was another one, and it flanked us from behind."

"There's two of them?" Vale asks.

"Yeah. I swear by the forge, it's like they were expecting us. I've never seen machines do something like that before. We were slaughtered in minutes. In all the chaos, Erend ordered for some of us to flee and escape back to Meridian," Derrick looks away in his obvious shame. "I hated the ideal of fleeing like a coward, but Erend commanded me to."

"He… saved your life. There's nothing wrong with living to fight another day," Aloy says, trying to sound strong, but the thought of Erend being dead threatens to break her.

"Huh, if only that were true. My leg is broken in three places. I made it back on a poorly made splint all the way back until they found me near Ironwood. Healers say I probably won't walk without a limp again. My days in the Vanguard are done," Derrick mutters. Aloy refrains from saying anything as she horrifically conceived that even a chance at redemption had been denied to him, and she can't find any other words to comfort him.

Luckily, Vale is the one who keeps his thoughts straight. "Where did this happen?"

Derrick sighs, his pleading staring saying he didn't want to share that information, to send them to their deaths when they went to go look, but he relents. "The ravine is close the the Claim's capital, just south of Mainspring. It's a week's journey from Pitchcliff. I'd tell you not to go, but Erend says you don't like being told what to do."

He looks at Aloy when he says this. A ghost of a smile appears across her lips as she nods.

"He knows me pretty well. And he's right. We're going to investigate no matter what the danger is. And I promise we'll bring Erend home."

"Then I should tell you what I know about the machine," the Oseram man offers. Aloy notices Vale tapping his Focus for a moment. He is still briefly as the light hovers just above his ear.

"What's the machine like? It's size, it's armour; everything," he demands.

"It's about the size of a Sawtooth, and it can fly. When we doused it with fire arrows, we hardly left a scratch on its hide. It can breathe fire, shoot bolts from its wings… and it's got this deafening roar that rattles the earth. I've never seen a machine like it before."

"Definitely nothing like anything I've come across," Vale mumbles. "We should go."

Aloy nods to Derrick and the two of them leave the infirmary. They exit the palace grounds and walk into the city. But instead of leaving for the gates, Aloy turns and walks towards the end of the city that looks over the mesa's edge and the Spire beyond. She keeps silent, but her mind is buzzing with so many thoughts, and the middle of the city is no place to think. She needs some sort of solitude.

Vale follows her without saying a word until they reach one of the gazebos built at the edge of town. No one else sits there, giving them the little bit of luxury of privacy that they could have, even though people pass by them on the footpath a mere ten feet away.

"Who was he?" he inquires suddenly.

"What?"

"This Erend person. You obviously care about him, don't you?" He pauses, but when Aloy doesn't speak, he continues. "You've had this grief-stricken look about you ever since the king mentioned that he was missing. Was he… someone special?"

It took a few seconds for Aloy to understand what he was getting at, but when it clicks, she gives him a silly grin and shakes her head.

"Not quite special, but important. He was one of the first people outside the Nora tribe I ever met. I helped him track down his sister and stop a madman from killing Avad. We fought side by side when the Eclipse attacked the Spire, too," Aloy says, and looks down at his feet, because the attentive look Vale is giving her causes a lump at the back of her throat. Her voice had cracked.

"Sounds like you two went through a lot together," he replies, his voice low.

"We did. It's hard to think that…" she then shakes her head fiercely. "No! He's not dead, he can't be. Erend's too… stubborn to get killed. I have to go find him." She turns and paces for the markets determinedly, but stops and addresses Vale. "You don't have to follow me, this is my business alone."

The man waves his arms. "What? Would you stop play this lone wolf act? It's getting old. I followed you this far, and if that machine is as dangerous as everyone says it is, then you _need_ my metal."

"Vale…"

He raises his hand to silence her. "Need I remind you that you have a target on your back? If you get caught unprepared, your dead, no matter how skilled you think you are!"

It seems he was finished. Aloy stares back at him, his expression stern and his stance steady. He meant what he said, and he knows he is right because this determined look of his practically asks for her to challenge it so he can shoot it down. No matter what the crisis seems, he was going to follow her and force himself into battle. She remembers the fight at Daytower, and his compliance with eliminating a bandit camp with no hesitation.

For the third time in their journey, Aloy feels a pang of guilt pierce her chest, a riddling emotion she is getting unfavourably familiar with.

She nods to him. "You're right. And… thanks. Now let's go."

The two of them walk into the market place, having both agreed that they needed to resupply for their next trip. It was going to be a long one, so they buy the most provisions without taking up as much space as possible. Aloy also searches for the rods necessary to make her heavy arrows, but surprisingly no one sells them, and she was itching to use her new bow.

They carry their luggage back across the bridge, past the main gate to an outcropping where their two Striders graze in the fields. By then, Aloy has already summarized a list of possible machines she could find the proper parts from.

"So, on to Pitchcliff?" Vale says after mounting his Strider.

"No."

"No?"

"We got some other business to take care of first," Aloy tells him as she raises her new bow. "It's time to hunt."

* * *

Throwing you for a whole loop as it'll take us another eight or so chapters for Aloy to actually get her hands on the Master Override. BUT! This whole side arc will introduce some new mechanics and new machines! And feature a territory we're never been to before.


	9. Journey to the Claim Pt 2

**Journey to the Claim Pt. 2**

Between the Sundom and Pitchcliff, there are several herds of machines to choose from. Really, they couldn't be picky. Just about every machine Aloy had encountered on her journey can be found along their path, from the small – a group of Broadheads that graze along the riverside where the grass was greenest – to the biggest – a Thunderjaw that circles just in sight of the path that leads up to the trial to Pitchcliff itself.

But Aloy decides they should try their luck with a more abundant herd first. If her memory was correct, and the worsening Derangement didn't change anything, they would come across a herd of machines just across the plains outside the hot atmosphere of Meridian's northeastern desolate canyons. That meant a full day and a half of traversing the terrain, and avoiding as much combat as possible.

Aloy begins to take note of the more erratic behaviour the machines are exhibiting, especially the hunter killer ones. They come across a pair of Ravagers on the road their first afternoon out of the city. The machines stalked the shadows and surveyed the surrounding area like they were looking for something, instead of shepherding the rather large herd of Grazers nearby. She could see no way around them without backtracking and losing time. They were encased in a red canyon that separated them from the plains of southern Oseram territory. So they planned their attack and destroyed the two larger machines as the rest of them fled, flushed out into the flat wilderness.

Vale stripped one of the Ravager cannons and tied the hunk of metal to his pack mounted on the Strider's back hump. He voiced that he wanted to experiment with a new missile weapon and trade it places with the Stalker cannon mounted to his shield. When they camped at the bottom of a hill that night, covered by a few trees, he had already torn away the outer casing and was ripping apart the cannon carefully, wire by wire. It always fascinated her to see how the components worked, how all the metal and electricity and fluids GAIA conjured together made a giant hunk of metal work like an animal. The way Vale picked apart the weapon with a practiced precision was utterly intriguing.

She had fallen asleep to the quiet clicks of his tools that night, and awoke to a blanket laid over her she didn't remember donning and the fire long burnt out.

When they make it out of the red rock canyons, they came upon the plains where they sit now, on top of a hill, Aloy propped up on one knee and Vale flat on his bottom, legs crossed. They are looking down on the herd of machines that dig out the ground near a river below.

"Lancehorns," Aloy confirms. She glances over at the silent mercenary. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. I've see armourmen and smiths use them all the time. The horns have a part inside them that's perfect for your arrows."

She taps her Focus to gather the details. Alongside the Lancehorns, two Longlegs and two Tramplers also populate the area. She could understand the Tramplers presence; they populated flat terrain all over the map. But the Longlegs were new and a pair of them were a force to be reckoned with. Their agility and speed made up for the Tramplers slower movements. This wasn't just a random change; was a conscious maneuver to discourage other hunters from challenging the pack. Hephaestus was making things tough.

"There's no place for an ambush, and we'll scare off the smaller machines if we start attacking the bigger guys first," she observes. "We'll lose the Lancehorns if we attack at all."

"What if we drive them into traps?" Vale suggests, pointing to the banks of the river that are on the far side of the herd. "We can set up traps along the shoreline and drive them to the river. The machines won't cross the water, so they'll have to divert either left or right."

Aloy's gaze lifts to the river. The current is strong, still roaring with the mountain runoff from the winter thaw. He was right. Aside from maybe a Snapmaw, no machine would risk crossing the current.

"We can trip the ones that flee while we fight the ones that stay. Good plan. I have a tripcaster, so I'll set the traps."

Vale agrees and shifts himself so he also sits up on one knee. "I'll stay here and get ready to push the herd. Don't get caught."

She gives him a quiet snicker in response. "Don't worry. I know you had masters teach you stealth, but I've got plenty of years in experience behind me, too. I'll fire the first shot when I'm ready."

The huntress sneaks down the hill with her bow and tripcaster and creeps to the left side of the group of machines. The grass is tall and lush and allows her to sneak by mostly unnoticed. There are gaps in the grass, and with the machines on patrol she had to time her pacing. The Longlegs are tricky; they could use their sonic sonar to detect her if they spotted anything, and only once along her path she had to step back and cover her ears as a Longleg screeched randomly into the bush in front of her. It never notices her, but she was dazed by the piercing sound for several minutes.

After a few tense moments and a two-foot close call with one of the Tramplers, she successfully navigates the herd and finds herself at the riverbanks. She loads some explosive wire into the launcher and fires three tripwires across the shore and a blast trap for good measure, and then sneaks across the river to the other side of the herd and does the same. The Lancehorns casually graze about as the two Tramplers circle in front of them where Vale waits. She couldn't see him from where she was, but a quick Focus search reveals that he has snuck down the hill and was hiding in the tall grass, awaiting her signal.

Aloy loads two shock arrows onto her bow and watches as one of the Longleg machines walks in front of her. She can stun it and give them the edge for the first moments of the hunt. She quickly rearranges her quiver so that her hardpoint arrows are the easiest to reach, because those Tramplers are going to have to be dealt with fast.

When she's finally ready, she draws the bowstring back and aims at the Longleg machine closest to her. She waits until it is the furthest from the herd and fires, the arrows shooting electricity through the machines's circuits and dropping it like a sack of shards.

A loud snap cracks through the air, and then another. The other Longleg drops to the ground, also stunned. Vale raises to his full height and in his hand is his whip, glowing with blue electricity. Apparently he had surmised the same thing. The Lancehorns spook and the Tramplers raise their heads, eyes amber and alert. Aloy raises her bow.

The chaos was about to begin.

As the Lancehorns cry out and begin to run away, Aloy fires her first shots into the excavating drills of a Trampler, breaking the component right off the hinges. The machine roars and stomps its hooves on the ground. Its patrol partner senses its aggression and the processing core under its belly begins heating up, ready to attack.

The Lancehorns race past her in a stampede, none of them concerned about her as they flee the sound of crackling lightning from Vale's rope. When they reach the edge of the river, they stop, hesitate, and then the group splits in either direction, going either left or right. A few seconds later, Aloy can hear it. Explosions rip the machines to shreds, throwing parts and wires into the air as machines trigger the traps and explode at their legs, rendering most of them incapacitated and destroyed. Smoke and dust rise into the air. It was a spectacular sight.

She turns her focus back to the other machines. The Tramplers begin circling her, closing in as fire starts to expel from their bodies. She nabs one of her arrows and fires it at one of them, striking the hoof and causing the machine to trip and fall. She feels the ground shake and jumps to the side as the other Trampler careens past her from behind. She fires an arrow at the antennae on its back, but the machine only flinches and keeps going.

Vale is making quick work on one of the Longlegs. He has a long bladed weapon mounted on his forearm, slicing the machine across the neck while it is still paralyzed. The mercenary stops it from getting up by stomping on its leg, breaking the ligament in two like it was a twig, and rips his weapon through the machine's head, sparks flying all over. If it had been blood instead, she supposed it would have been a horrific sight. In fact, it _was_ horrific. But these are machines, mechanized terraforming entities and not humans with souls and families to worry about.

At the same time, this was probably why Hephaestus hated them.

The fallen Trampler gets back to its feet and barrels towards her. Aloy grabs her tripcaster and aims for a spot on the ground. She manages to fire the first end of the wire before jumping out of the way of the machine's charge, giving her time to set the other end of the wire a few feet away. When the machine turns around, it faces her, digging its hooves in the ground.

"Come and get it!" she taunts, holding her arms wide and stomping her foot on the ground. It seems almost like a trick if the light, but she's sure that the machine's eyes burn with the fiercest red glow she's ever seen. The Trampler charges with much more malice than before. Aloy takes a few steps back as the huge machine trips the wire and sends an overwhelming force of electricity through its circuits. It falls on its face and skids across the ground right up to her feet, where she is holding up her spear and stabs out its eyes.

The other Trampler comes up behind her, but she jumps out of the way before it could bring its hooves down on her. She turns on a heel and strikes the side of the machine's face. It hardly seems phased and immediately knocks her aside with its one good horn. Aloy turns her momentum into a back roll and lands on her feet, quickly dodging the flying rocks the machine throws her way with its explosive stomp attack.

One of the Longlegs gets up and lets out a raging screech into the air. It joins the Trampler's side so she faces two machines instead of one.

Before she could curse her luck, Vale joins her side, his whip crackling. She could see through the blue visor in his helmet that they share a look. With the two of them facing the two machines, they could end this battle quickly. But they were mismatches like this.

"Switch me places," Aloy demands. He doesn't argue, and now she is standing in front of the Longleg while Vale faces the Trampler. She can't hope to match the Trampler's strength, but she can keep up with the agility of the Longleg. The match is set.

She charges for the machine as Vale snaps his whip to get the Trampler's attention. It bellows and charges right at him, but he doesn't move until the last second, throwing his rope around the machines's front legs and watching it topple over past him. When the dust clears, the Trampler can be seen squirming with its restraints, but it isn't long before it manages the break the rope, the blue electric current giving one final jolt that explodes in sparks right where the rope had broken, causing damage to the machine. The Trampler roars again and pounds the ground, sending dirt and gravel flying at Vale like bolts. He manages to block them with his shield just in time.

Aloy focuses on the Longlegs. The taller machine lunges at her, closing the distance between them in mere seconds with its jet wings. Aloy blocks its sharp beak with her spear, the force pushing her back several feet. The concussion sacs on the machine's chest expand and Aloy knows what it was about to do. She drops her spear and covers her ears, but the shriek it emits towards her still manages to daze her. She falls to her knees as she tries to shake the buzz out of her ears as if it would cure it faster. She knows she's an open target now, but the numbing of her senses disorients her beyond moving.

Vale watches the Longleg move in and aims the cannon on his shield. The shot destroys one of the jets on the machine's wings and makes it trip on its feet, collapsing on the ground past a stunned Aloy, allowing the Trampler to move in on him. It tackles him with its horn, throwing him across the field head over feet.

Aloy looks up to see Vale fall in a cloud of dust. She forces herself to stand up, the ringing in her ears still prominent, and aim for the Trampler's one remaining excavating drill. Her aim is perfect, destroying the component. The Trampler turns to her, but she loads a fire arrow and quickly gets the shot off in the machine's eye, right in between the visors and burning the lenses. The machine squeals something that sounds acutely like a boar's shriek of pain, which is something Aloy hasn't heard in a machine before.

She turns back to the Longleg, which is taking a jump at her. She dives out of the way and aims another type of arrow at the back of the machine; a shock arrow. Again, she lands her shot perfectly in the sparker on the machine's back and backs away with the few seconds she has to spare before the battery explodes. When it does, it kills the Longleg and stuns the Trampler, still dazed with the fire arrow in its eye. Aloy loads three arrows onto her bow and pulls the bowstring back as far as she can to maximize the damage output. The Trampler gets to its feet, but not before she launches her arrows into the processing unit on the machine's underbelly.

The component blows up in a great fiery explosion that tears the machine in two.

Aloy makes a quick scan of the field before she lets herself relax: all other machines were already dead. The hunt is over.

She stands still as the last of the ringing in her head fades away. She stows away her bow on her back before turning to find Vale, but he is already standing right next to her, his weapons put away and his helmet hanging on his belt.

"You're hurt," she points out, noticing the big dent in his chest armour.

"It's just a bruise. I'm fine," he replies plainly with a shrug, and immediately winces.

"Bruises don't bleed," she prods. The man looks down. Just under his breast plate, his shirt has a dark stain dripping down from underneath the armour. The dent is right over his heart, which causes an icy chill to run up her spine in worry for her companion. He wipes his hand over the stain and observes the blood on his fingers.

"Oh…" he realizes. "Must have been hit harder than I thought."

"Are you gonna be okay?" she asks, trying not to sound too concerned. Clearly Vale wasn't, so why should she?

Vale quickly wipes the blood off and answers; "Yeah, I'll be fine once we set down tonight. Let's go check out those Lancehorns."

The huntress nods and they go to observe how their traps had worked. All along the ground are bits of metal and wire and coolant from broken chillwater canisters. Lancehorn corpses scatter the riverside, all mangled up and destroyed. The horns on each machine, however, are luckily all intact. Aloy starts to rip off the horns and tie them up in bundles with wire.

"There will be new machines here by the morning. We shouldn't stay here," she tells Vale as he brings their Striders over from the cover they had left them in.

"I know. We can get across the fields and start the hike uphill," Vale replies. She tosses him the first bundle of horns and he begins tying it down on the Strider's back. "I can show you how to craft the arrows when we get a chance."

"Sounds good."

When they finish gathering all the parts – almost two dozen horns in all, so much that Aloy considers hijacking a bigger machine to carry the load – they continue on their trail north. She can tell they are at the edge of Oseram territory when the land starts in a steady upwards climb and a grey haze replaces the blue skies above.

They find a place to camp next to the base of the first jagged cliffs leading up to the mountains. They are decently far away from any machine patrols. The closest, that Aloy can remember, are the Snapmaws that guard the river. But they were further upriver and not even in sight yet. They would probably run into them by early morning tomorrow. This was a safe place.

Vale begins setting up a fire pit and his bedroll in a practiced routine they had settled into over the past week. Aloy sets up their small tents using the large branches of old dwindling trees, while he dug out a small pit and assembles a pile of wood before using an odd sparking device from the hard case strapped to the side of his belt. Within minutes, the fire is blazing at a decent size and warm enough that he strips all his upper armour from his chest and shoulders, leaving them in a small pile next to his bedroll. The wound on his chest is already dried and crusty and forms a line down to his the belt at his waist. He brings out a small pack of healing supplies, some of its contents Aloy recognizes, like herbal leaves and berries and bandage wrapping.

Aloy grabs one of the bundles of Lancehorn parts as soon as he finishes patching himself and sets it on the ground next to him, looking at him expectantly.

"So you know how to craft these arrows for my new bow. Show me."

If he's annoyed by her request after immediately fixing his wound, he doesn't show it. "Alright," he says instead. Vale picks one of the horns from the pile and examines it from end to end. "Could you get my tools? They're with the Strider."

She goes to retrieve the sack of tools strapped to the machine, their mounts just grazing a few feet from them in the grass.

 _Even at night, they don't stop carrying out their designed purpose,_ Aloy muses to herself. She knows which bag holds his tools. She's seen him reach into it several times along their journey now. She brings it over and sets it gently beside him and joins him on the ground, sitting cross legged in front of him.

"Ever seen a sword made from a Lancehorn?" he asks while reaching into the bag. Aloy gives him a quizzical look.

"They make swords out of Lancehorn drills?"

"That's a no…" From the bag, he produces two devices, nothing like she has seen before in merchants stalls or around Oseram forges. "Well, where I come from, the commanders of the armies usually carry a sword made from a machine part of their preference, as a sign of their rank. I've seen a few of them up close before. But these horns are good for more than just swords. There's a rod inside of them that you can pull out if you crack the horn open."

"Sounds easy enough," she says.

"Maybe, but if you crack open the horn you risk bending the rod inside, and a bent rod does you no good," he points to the end of the horn where the hinges are shattered, "You have to pull the gears out of the end and pull the rod out there."

He takes one of the tools, which has a hook on it, and begins cutting away the splintered metal at the base of the horn. He makes it look easy, pulling the shards of metal out until the gears are completely uncovered. He then takes the other tool and clamps it onto the gears. With a twist, he pulls the gears off the horn and tips the horn down, letting the rod fall into his open hand with a satisfying _swoop_.

He hands the rod to Aloy. It's the perfect length for an arrow shaft and surprisingly light. It's hollow, which means it will fly far, but it's covered in a fine film of machine oil. He hands her a rag, which she assumes she is supposed to use to clean the oil off.

"If you got the shards, you can make arrowheads and tails for them," Vale explains.

"Can I make elemental arrows out of these?" she asks, but the man shrugs.

"Never seen it done with these kind of arrows, but it shouldn't be any different than making them out of wooden arrows."

Aloy stares back at the bundles of horns they had collected. It's a lot of work for one piece of metal.

"And I have to do that to all the horns to get the rod?"

"Yup," he chirps quickly and hold out the tools for her. Aloy lets out a quiet groan and snags them, examining them to see how they work. Once she thinks she has a vague understanding of them, she grabs another horn and begins tinkering with it. Of course it's harder than it looks. She can't get the tool to grip the metal shards well enough to pry them away from the gears; the teeth keep slipping and she bangs her knuckle on the metal trying to get the free. It frustrates her, but eventually she learns to hold the tool right and pulls the shards away. She takes the other tool and bites it on the gears, and it's much easier to remove them then it is the fragmented metal. But there's still two dozen horns to go.

Aloy works well into the night, pulling apart metal and arranging her rods into a neat pile. The scrap she throws to the side, a treat for the Scrappers and Glinthawks. Vale sits by the fire and keeps it fuelled so she has a source of light to work with. He watches her work occasionally, but lulls himself to sleep eventually, close to the fire.

Aloy's hands are grimy and sore by the time she manages to secure the last arrowhead into place, done up like any other arrow she had crafted before. She realizes that she'll have to make a new quiver, as the metal arrows are heavy and bigger. But she wraps them up in a bundle for now and sets them to the side. When she tucks herself into bed, the fire is little more than a few licks of flame jumping from a pile of red coals.

And she can't wait to use her new ammo.

… … …

Morning comes and they're on the move again. They keep their distance from the river to avoid the Snapmaws and take the long route up the trail, and the upwards slope starts to wear down their Striders. After coming such a long way, they're joints are worn and Aloy can feel the difference in their movements. It'll be time to search for new mounts soon.

With such an uneventful morning, She decides to explain more of what she knows to Vale about the sub-function Hephaestus, going more in depth about what it is and what is does. The story of the other systems are a subject for another time. If Hephaestus was their enemy, Vale had to understand as much as possible. She admitted that her thoughts after hunting yesterday had put things into perspective for her. He was her partner now, and she had to make sure they were on the same level.

She told him where the Zero Dawn site was, and tried to explain as best as she could what she saw in the holograms. Margo Shen, the Alpha of the Hephaestus program, said that the sub-function was really the creative thought process behind the whole machine-building cauldrons, and that was tough to put into simple words. Aloy had replayed the footage in her Focus over and over again until she understood it herself, and being that they hadn't figured out how to connect their Focuses yet, she couldn't just send that data to him to see with his own eyes.

"Wait," he interrupts abruptly. "So let me get this straight: Hephaestus is the creative thought… behind who's actions? Who does he answer to?"

Aloy didn't know how to answer this question. Or if she should at all. Gaia was one of her most closely guarded secrets, and it wasn't just hers. It was the world's secret; it regarded _everything_ , from the trees to the small animals to the machines and humans, the metal that they wore, the food they ate. Gaia was probably responsible for the plant machine they found back in the bandit camp.

But because of her now, there was no Gaia. She was the reason the Derangement started and why Hades nearly destroyed the world. How did you explain that?

She thoughts are interrupted when she hears a loud scream come from down the road ahead of them. There's a thin fog in the air, making visibility poor.

"What was that?" she says.

"I don't know. It came from up ahead," Vale responds. Aloy knows that they are getting close to the settlement of Pitchcliff. They had already passed one of their river-powered constructions a few minutes ago.

Aloy spurs her Strider into a gallop and races down the path. The cool morning air whips by her face as she adjusts herself into a stand on the machine's flanks as she would normally in a gallop, but her grip around the machine's reining wires are steel tight in anticipation.

She comes upon a horrific sight. She finds a man, Oseram by the style of his attire — thick leather for working in the forges — under the paws of a strange machine that looks a lot like a Scrapper, but it's familiar with its black metal armour and bulky components. Aloy watches as it plunges a pair of grinding maws down on the man's neck, a terrifying scream screeching into the air as blood sprays all over the ground.

Aloy knows it's already too late, but she finds her bow and an arrow and quick as lightning shoots the machine in its side. The machine flinches and takes its jaws off the human, who is already dead, to look at her.

Aloy reaches for her new bow and one of her newly made arrows. The machine starts charging at her as she pulls the bowstring back, finding it hard to draw back fully. There are no protective visors on the machine's face so she aims for its eyes. Just as it lunges at her, she releases the arrow and it flies faster than her eyes can track. It fires with so much force that it sends the machine flying back as its lens and eye socket shatter into dozens of pieces and the machine collapses with sparks flying out of its head.

She's amazed by the power of the bow. A single shot was all it took to kill the new machine. If it weren't for the dire situation, she would have gone up to inspect the damage. But she runs up to the dead human body instead.

"I'm too late," she murmurs remorsefully. She hears the sound of another Strider approaching her, and a moment later Vale is beside her.

"What happened?" he asks, but the answer lays in front of him as she remains silent. There's blood all over the man's upper half. It's a gruelling sight, by Aloy manages to reach over and close the man's eyes as a final figment of peace.

"I'm sorry…" she laments.

Flying sparks almost make her jump. Her head snaps to Vale, who's standing over the machine and tearing into its side with a knife. He digs in it until he reveals the heart and carefully cuts all the wires and hoses keeping it in place. She sees him activate his Focus as he stands and observes the component.

"What do you see?" she asks as she comes to her full height. Vale doesn't reply right away. He takes a few steps away to give himself some space. Whatever he sees, his eyes widen and he looks at his surroundings frantically… or trying to understand everything he was seeing. Aloy recognized the behaviour.

"Faces, everywhere. People, and they're marked," he speaks.

"Marked how?" she demands.

"They're either active or… eliminated," Vale hands flick in the air in front of him. It's frustrating not being able to see what he sees. "It's a hit list. These people are marked for death. There's _dozens_ of them, Aloy."

Aloy takes a moment to analyze this new information and then glances down at the dead man. Just like her, people were being targeted by machines. Avad and Vale were right; they were actively looking to kill humans. The Derangement — Hephaestus was ordering Gaia's machine to hunt the human species.

What bothered her was how he was able to control all these machines, even the peaceful ones. She thought back to the attack on the Nora Sacred lands, how all the other machines fought the Nora braves like they were built to kill instead of built to gather resources. They weren't corrupted like Hades had done to them, and not daemonic as Hephaestus had controlled them… at first. What had changed?

Aloy activates her Focus and brings up Cauldron Sigma's catalogs. Her Focus had copied the data she had been sifting through, and she is thankful when she finds the correct line of code.

 _What's the Command Protocol?_

Cyan would probably know something. If there was a hint of similar code related to anything that Hephaestus used to take over her systems, they might just find a way to put a stop to it.

She deactivates her Focus.

"Vale, I need you to keep working on connecting our Focus's together. If we can share information, I might be able to find out what Hephaestus is planning and put a stop to it."

He nods and nudges his chin to the corpse beside her. "What about him?"

"We can't do anything for him. Pitchcliff is close. They can give him a proper funeral."

"So we just leave him here?" he asks incredulously. Aloy sees the remorse in his face and suddenly feels guilty. She _didn't_ want to just leave the body here, but she was hard pressed to find Erend and his Vanguard as soon as possible. They couldn't give the man his peace, but the Oseram in Pitchcliff could.

She points to her Strider and says; "Let's get him home."

* * *

A little bit of world-building for ya, and there will be plenty more once we enter Oseram territory in the next chapter!


	10. Journey to the Claim Pt 3

**Journey to the Claim Pt. 3**

The location of the attack on the Vanguard was still several days away, and deep within Oseram territory. Aloy had never been further than the mountain range just north of Pitchcliff, so she didn't know what to expect. All she knew was that she had to look for the ravine that Derrick had mentioned, which would lead them to the Vanguard and Erend's last known location.

The body that they had found on the road was brought to Pitchcliff for the people to bury. It turned out that the man — named Rosgrund, as they learned — was a skill forgeman, and was making weapons to help improve the outposts defensive capabilities in response to the machines getting worse. He would have his weapons tested on the local herds in the field by passing mercenary groups and then fitted along the walls, according to the Pitchcliff ealderman.

As the Oseram buried their fallen comrade, firebomb drinking style, Aloy pondered over this dilemma. It made sense that testing new weapons against so many machines would be the reason the man was targeted, but it was practically unheard of. Up until Daytower a week ago, she never believed the machines to have the aptitude to seek revenge for their fallen metal kin, but she supposed Hephaestus was the reason behind this development. All the more reason to find the AI as soon as possible.

They had crossed the northern mountains beyond Pitchcliff and delved further into Oseram territory. Aloy had never been this far before, so she treaded with strategic movements. She kept them to the hills on higher ground, her bow always ready, and always watching for machines. Of course they were unavoidable, but not all of them were looking to fight her and Vale.

About two days ago, they had found a Tallneck circling a large stone grey mesa in the middle of a mountain range. Vale had pointed it out, spurring Aloy into action. He stayed back as she climbed and hopped up the stone wall until she made it to the very top, where she was able to jump onto the machine's disk-shaped head without having to climb up it's neck. She overrode it's core control and downloaded their most precious asset in these new lands; a map.

Exploring the map with her Focus, Aloy was able to determine where the closest human settlement was. After overriding half a dozen Tallnecks in the past, Aloy was able to recognize the landmarks of human-made structures on the digital map, even though they were just tiny jumbled shapes. She could see all the roads and mountains and lakes and traced a path to their next destination.

Ironwood was a small fort town high up in the cold mountains. They had learned of it after passing by a heavily guarded Oseram caravan on their way to the south. The town was peaceful enough, and apparently the Vanguard's first stop when they marched out to deal with the machine threat. Aloy had hoped to get some sort of information here.

When they reach the gates — a large entrance made of wood and forged metal. Aloy can smell a hint of burning charcoal in the air, something she has come to associate with Free Heap. Their Strider mounts were left behind down the road and out of sight because Aloy didn't know how the people here were going to react to a tame machine, and most of the Oseram were builders, if not sellers. They might destroy their rides just to get the parts to work with.

Two guards clad in thick brown armour stare down at them as they approach. They're both holding weapons, heavy mauls that remind her of Erend's weapon, and their helmets are somewhat similar as well.

"Are you gonna stare at us all day or let us in?" Aloy shouts at them. The two guards jump and one of them shouts commands. A second later, the broad wooden doors open up for them, the hinges creaking under their heavy weight. A couple more men in armour are waiting on the other side.

"Do you know these people?" Vale asks with a curious quirk in his eyebrow.

"No, but I know the Oseram in general. Whoever has the loudest voice is the one that calls the shots," Aloy replies. In truth, she had been preparing herself for a lot of heated discussion. She once read a traveller's account to Oseram territory and recounted the ealdermen only responding when yelled at, to demand attention and command. The Oseram were a loud people. You had to raise your voice above all others to get your answer.

Inside the walls of the fort is a small community made up of round stone huts and big square stone structures. Aloy can identify a marketplace with its several merchant stalls of weapons, armour, food and other items to their right. The fort wrapped around the one side of the mountain, and on the other side of the fort was a big bridge that went over the gap to the next cliff, supported by a row of tall pillars of stone.

"Where are you two from?" a guard asks.

"From the south. We came here looking for the Vanguard. We heard that they had come through here," Aloy answers. The man snorts.

"You're looking for those pretty boys? Sorry lady, you're outta luck. They passed by about a week ago, headed for Mainspring."

"Except they didn't go to Mainspring. They went looking for a machine," Aloy corrects. "Did they stop here? Did anyone talk to them?"

"Erm, the captain had a word with the ealderman here. You can talk to him, if he even _wants_ to talk to you." The guard points to the biggest building in town. It's situated down the centre of the road and off to the side, a big domed building with two chimneys billowing heavy smoke from their tops. There are banners flying on either side of the entrance with a symbol she's never seen before.

Aloy nods to the guard and starts making her way to the building. Vale follows without a word.

"He was… friendly," he says. She looks over and sees him giving the Oseram guard a dirty glare. It occurs to her that this was the first time meeting Oseram in their home territory, and she remembered reading the traveller's account on outsiders.

"You wanna know what the Oseram think about the Carja?" she replies. Vale gives his attention back to her and she says, "I couldn't repeat it, but it's not very nice. I think the idea of royalty doesn't run by well with the Oseram."

"Too be fair, I've never liked royalty either," Vale tells her. "But why remark their own tribespeople like that?"

"Jealousy. All the Oseram who moved to Meridian are doing pretty well for themselves, and the ealdermen don't like that. And I think there's still some tension from the Red Raids."

"Red Raids?"

Vale's tone of questioning stops her from moving.

"You don't know about the Red Raids? How the Carja took prisoners from all the tribes for blood sacrifice?" she asks. Vale looks at her like she has suddenly grown a third eye.

"No? Aloy, I live beyond a vast desert to the west. I doubt anyone bothered to cross it to look for people to kidnap."

Aloy nods and fidgets with her hair in embarrassment. _Of course_ he wouldn't know the story of this land. He was a stranger here.

"Right. Sorry, I just thought everyone knew. I'll tell you some other time."

They continue their way to the ealderman's building in the centre of town. Aloy observes the structures and people as they walk. She hasn't been to new foreign lands in a long time and she takes in all the new sights and sounds that she can. It very much reminds her of Pitchcliff and Free Heap. There's the constant pounding of metal against metal and saws cutting wood; all the sounds one would associate with the forge. When they pass the marketplace, Aloy sees the armour stands and the armour that's mounted on them.

She doesn't recognize any machine plating on the armour. Everything is metal-shaped and strapped to brown or black leather, padded with thick fabric and came with a round helmet. Next to it, a giant square piece of iron and wood leans up against it. Aloy realizes it as a shield, but not like Vale's mechanized armament. These were simple and built with one purpose. They look heavy too. She imagines an army of men carrying shields like that. It would be like fighting a wall.

They come up to the path that leads to the ealderman's home and Aloy is about to mentally prepare herself for an exhaustive talk. But when she sees the lineup at the ealderman's door, she groans in irritation.

"There _must_ be at least two dozen people in that lineup," Vale observes, which only serves to annoy her more when she sees that he's right.

"And I won't be able to cut ahead of the line this time, either. This could take a while," she says and turns to the mercenary. "You should go buy some supplies. I'll grab a spot in line and wait to talk to the ealderman."

"You sure?" he hesitantly expresses. When she gives him an affirmative nod, he gives the lineup one last look and lightly pats her on the back of her shoulder. "Good luck."

He steps away and leaves for the entrance and Aloy quickly takes her place at the back of the lineup before anyone else can step in. She knows it will be a while before she can get a chance to ask the ealderman about Erend, by nightfall even. But she's come a long way and any chance to discover what happened to her dear friend she was going to take.

 _It's just a big lineup of people. How boring can it get?_ She thinks to herself.

… … …

Hours later, she's just about ready to pull her hair out of their roots.

The line has barely moved. Only two people have been in and out of the ealderman's building and more people have taken their place behind her. The hammering of the forges has given her a splitting headache and it's gotten dark out. Torches and lanterns have been lit all around the town and they give the buildings dark shadows where people start to disappear into as they retreat to their homes. The air has cooled, making Aloy shiver unceasingly. She's a little more than grumpy.

Vale never returned. She supposed he was with their Striders, making camp somewhere around the outskirts of Ironwood. His company would have been nice, instead of the bickering people around her. But long ago she realized she couldn't retrieve him. She couldn't leave her spot in line to find him or send him a message with her Focus. She was alone surrounded by whole community of people and the irony of it made her feel miserable.

She's brooding so deeply in her own thoughts that she almost doesn't hear the screams and shouts coming from far away. The people in the line around her rise up in whispers and shouts as Aloy gets a hold of her bearings and looks around her. She hears the clanging of metal armour as a few town guards run by towards the gate that leads to the bridge.

Then she hears the most distinguishable sound she's ever heard; a machine cry.

More specifically, a Glinthawk's cry.

All concern about her place in the lineup leaves her in a snap as she drops into a run towards the gate. Men are situated in the towers above with bows in hand and the glow of flame-tipped arrows with them, poised to fire. A few guards huddle behind the gate, some of them holding duplicates of the square shield she saw in the market earlier.

"…Protect the caravan at all costs. We can't lose that metal!" one of them was shouting. Aloy is thankful she didn't abandon her old bow and arrows with her Strider. She grabs her bow from her back and joins them.

"What are you doing, girl? Go find a place to hide!" a guard bellows at her.

"I'm a hunter. I can fight!" she responds, two arrows already on the bowstring. "Let me join you."

The guard shakes his head. "Fine, but it's your own hide you're risking." He pounds his hammer against his shield to rally up his fellow troops. "Open the gates!"

A large wooden bar is lifted and the gates are pushed open to reveal the bridge. In the middle of it sit two big carts with piles of metal material in them. A few men already surround the caravan, although they're not wearing armour and some of them don't even have weapons in hand. They aren't warriors and they're in danger. It's her first thought to rush out there and defend them, but then a Glinthawk swoops by and she sees a problem.

Glinthawk are everywhere. She can't count how many there are because they're all flittering about in a flurry, trying to snatch the precious metal junk. It must look like a treasure trove to them, because they're greedily taking whatever they can. Metal pieces already litter the ground from fallen machines.

Aloy goes to work, timing her arrows to strike her targets with ease. As the flaming arrows catch the machines on fire, they plummet down into the rocks below. Some of them never come back up, but it's hard to see the tide of the battle turning at first because there's so many of them.

Aloy ducks and rolls when a Glinthawk dives out of the sky towards her. She doesn't dare advance any further without the guards and their shields. Thinking about that makes her wish Vale was here right now. She didn't realize how much of a great tool it was until she didn't have it.

But the unit of town guards move with their own haste and Aloy shoots down as many flying scavengers as she can before they manage to form a protective barrier around the caravans. Those who can't fight hide under the carts as the guards protect them with their shields. Aloy continues her assault and catches sight of one of the men attending the caravan. She can tell he's not a guard because all he wears is a white plain sleeveless shirt covered in grime and dirt and dark slacks. There's a black marking on his shoulder and a maul in his hand. She can recognize his face instantly and it brings back so many memories and emotions that she halts in her tracks.

"Olin?"

The man's bushy eyebrows rise on his forehead. "Aloy! What are you doing here?"

She points to the carts. "Find some cover! I'll deal with these machines."

She doesn't know why protecting him is the first thing that comes to mind for her, but she remembers that the reason he was still alive was he had a family, and they had fought together to rescue them once.

"No! Not while I hold steel in my hands," he shouts. To further prove his capability, he turns and finds a Glinthawk swoop in and smashes it into the ground with his heavy weapon. He hits it once more while it's on the ground and that stops it from moving.

Aloy spares herself the argument. She knows Olin isn't a true fighter, but his willingness to go into battle back when they rescued his family showed a good chunk of his bravery. He could handle his own.

Some Glinthawks attempt to snag a handful of metal from the pile and take off, but Aloy shoots them down before they can get very far. The loot they grab drops to the ground and scatter all over the place. Some of the caravan caretakers run out to recover the stolen metal and hide it with them under the cart to make sure none of the other scavengers pick up the loose scraps.

Aloy aims for a Glinthawk, but a bolt strikes it in the back. It clips the bridge railing before falling into the valley below, screeching as it goes. Aloy looks around for the source of the attack and is relieved to find Vale emerging from the gates to town, his shield cannon raised. He fires two more shots and downs two more machines. When a Glinthawk dives towards him with talons primed, he swings his shield and bashes the machine to the side and shoots it in the head.

"I'm gone for a few hours and this is what you get into?" he exclaims.

"Oh sorry. I have a habit of _saving lives_! Help me out!" she cries as she shoots down another flying machine. She can see another flock of Glinthawks making their way towards them from the mountain on the road ahead, about four of them.

"You forgot this," Vale hands her her new bow and the new quiver of the arrows she had crafted. "Figured you'd want it."

"Thanks," she grabs her new weapon and fastens the quiver to her belt quickly while Vale hovers over her with his shield. When she's ready, she sets a metal arrow on the bowstring. She pulls the tough weapon back until she can feel the bowstring hold and aims at one of the incoming Glinthawks. The machine is flying right towards her, lined up perfectly in the weapon's sights. In the blink of an eye, the arrows nails the machine square in the head, shattering the head plate and extinguishing the light in the machine's eyes instantly. It crashes into the side of the bridge and plummets into the dark unknown.

As the rest of the machines swarm them, the town guard work on escorting the caravan attendees across the bridge to the gates for safety. Their shields protect them for the most part, and they move in pairs to protect one worker at a time.

"We got Scrappers!" someone yells. Aloy looks across the bridge and sees a pack of small machines running towards them.

"They must be after the scrap metal too. Vale!" she shouts.

"I'm here!" he responds, right behind her. She grabs her spear.

"Let's deal with those Scrappers," she urges. Vale responds by grabbing his hammer from his back and they both charge side by side to meet the wave of new machines. As much as she wanted to use her new bow some more, using such a heavy weapon in a fast-paced battle was a poor choice, and the town guards seem capable of taking care of the Glinthawks. Most of their arrows find their mark and the flying machines are falling to the ground in burning wrecks.

Aloy jumps back as a Scrapper lunges for her and she plunges her spear deep in its side, a precision strike that fells the machine. She hears a scream and looks up.

A Glinthawk has snatched one of the workers that the guards are trying to get across the bridge. It's struck from above, grabbing the man by the arms with its talons. It rises into the air with ease and flies out over the dark valley.

"No!" Olin shouts, knowing what it is about to happen. The machine's claws unclamp from the man's arms and let him fall into the rocks below.

Vale acts quickly. He whips up a lasso in mere seconds and tosses it over the bridge's edge. The rope snares around the man's waist almost perfectly, but Vale is dragged right to the edge and grabs the railing with his free hand to stop himself from falling over. The Glinthawk chirps angrily and swoops in on Vale while he's unable to move.

It's wing explodes into pieces from one of Aloy's metal arrows, having enough time to draw her bow and fire. She quickly puts it away and rushes to Vale, grabbing the rope and helping him pull the man up to the bridge. Some of the town guards focus their attention on the Scrappers, which is a much easier opponent for them to deal with. On the ground, the Scrappers have no way to deal with the guard's heavy shields and are smashed to pieces with hammers.

When they finish pulling the worker over the railing, the last of the machines have been dealt with and the Oseram warriors bellow out in victorious cheer.

"You two… were a great help," Olin pants. "Aloy, I never imagined I would see you again."

"Neither did I, Olin," the huntress admits. "I'm… glad you're doing well."

"I'm doing more than well, thanks to you. And my family is safe," Olin looks around and cautiously says to her, "Did you ever find your mother?"

"Mother?" Vale speaks suddenly, standing right beside her. Aloy feels her face go hot and she shakes her head quickly, the pressure and attention overwhelming.

"We can talk about that later! I'm here for other reasons," she says quickly. Olin stares at her with an apologetic purse of his lips and a nod.

"Then what did you come to the Claim for?"

"Erend. He and his Vanguard came through here. I was hoping to talk to the ealderman to see what he knew about them," she tells him. The Oseram delver nods in understanding.

"Ah, ealderman Haverd. He's a busy man, but I know him personally. I can get you a chance to talk to him if you wish."

Aloy is surprised by the sudden offer. "Really? You can do that for me?"

"Of course. If I recall, I owe my life to you, girl!"

"And if I recall correctly, I remember telling you that you don't owe me anything. But… if you can get me an audience with the town ealderman, I guess I won't mind."

She smiles, and Olin returns the gesture.

"Very good. We'll get this cleaned up. You can meet me in front of the ealderman's home. I'll wait for you there."

The man leaves to attend the mess around the caravan as the workers return to clean up the metal. Aloy takes a step back toward the town before she feels a hand grasp her shoulder.

"What was that about?" Vale asks. She's frozen again, hesitating to tell him of this _very_ personal secret. She gently pushes his hand away and turns back to him.

"That's… a story for another time. I'm sorry," she replies, and starts making her way back towards town. Looks like she'd be cutting ahead of that line after all.

* * *

Some Oseram world-building again and the next chapter has more, including new machines! What could they be?!


	11. Side-The Silver Mines Pt 1

**Side-The Silver Mines Pt 1**

-The ealderman of Ironwood asks Aloy and Vale to remove the machines that infest their mines…

* * *

Aloy and Vale sit in silence together in a room of the ealderman's building. A large round table was placed in the middle and bordered by chairs made of metal and wood, and were uncomfortable to sit in. A stone hearth is built into the corner and Aloy watches the fire to keep herself settled, mesmerized by the dancing flames. They were offered drinks, but they smell heavily of alcohol and it makes her nose wrinkle. Surprisingly, Vale doesn't take a sip of his beverage either.

"You strike me as someone who could chug that glass in a minute," she says, breaking the silence.

"I can," he replies, fingers laced together over his belly, and he's slouched back in the chair. "I choose not to."

She doesn't bother to ask why.

She's so desensitized that her senses go on the fritz when she hears footsteps come from behind the only door to the room. There's two of them, and heavy, as Oseram footsteps were. When the door opened, Olin was the first to appear.

"These are the two warriors who helped us," he speaks behind him. He's followed by a much burlier man wearing brown leather clothing. There's a fur hat on his head made out of a raccoon and his face is framed by a greyish beard. He comes to a stand at the edge of the table and takes a good long look at both of them.

"Well aren't you two the fiercest looking fighters I've ever seen in this town. You with all your metal armour and you with your blazing red hair! Why haven't I heard the miners sing songs about you two yet?" he says with a hearty smile.

"They… what?" Aloy deadpans.

"Ah, the boys like to chat up a storm when they're digging, and sometimes they break out into old nanny songs. Keeps their spirits up, ya know?" The man pulls up a chair and sits down at the table. So does Olin. "I'm Haverd, the town mayor. I understand that I owe you two a favour?"

"We're looking for Erend and his Vanguard," Aloy blurts out, and Haverd's face goes sour.

"You're looking for those Carja toe-kissers? Why? They're not here, as you can see," he sneers. Aloy's eyes narrow in his direction, but she does her best to remain calm.

"They went missing, and we're trying to find them," she says, a little more loudly than intended, but she figures it's more fitting when she was talking to an Oseram ealderman. Haverd stares at her more a few seconds in silence before she adds; "They were marching out to stop some machines."

The man's face softens a bit as he nods. "Aye, so they did. They came through town about a week ago. It seemed like a lot of men for one machine."

"It isn't just one machine, and from what I understand, it's the first of it's kind. These machines are a serious threat and it needs to be stopped."

Haverd's gaze swaps between her and Vale. "And you two plan to hunt this thing yourselves?"

"We're pretty good," Vale confirms.

"You really think you can do it? If Erend and his men are missing, it probably means they got killed! Gobbled up by whatever vicious killer is coming for us! What makes you think you can kill a machine like this?" Haverd exclaims. Aloy plants her hands flat on the table tries to look as serious and calm as possible because she's tired of people thinking that Erend could be dead.

"I don't care what you think. I care about finding Erend and the Vanguard, and the sooner you can tell me where he went, the sooner we can find him and bring him back. There are people in danger who need their steel for protection!"

Haverd raises his hands likes he's about to be engulfed in Aloy's rage. "Alright, girl. Fire and spit! Olin, why didn't you tell me she was so fierce and loud?"

The other man shrugs with a small mischievous grin. "I would answer her, Haverd. She'll gut you if she doesn't get what she wants. Believe me, I know firsthand."

The mayor grumbles something unintelligible before he sighs and runs his hand through his beard. "Alright, but you have to do me a favour before we send you off."

Aloy huffs in annoyance. "You asking me a favour after I already did you one?"

Olin cuts in. "Erend went north from here, which is where we're asking you to do this favour for us. The mines we regularly dig out got overrun by machines. Most of the miners won't risk their lives to fight them, and if you haven't noticed, this town has got no cannons we could use to drive them out with."

"I'm asking you two, as the two capable hunters that you proved yourselves to be, to clear out the mines so we can get our metal for the forges. We're trying to improve our defences for the machine threat, but we can't do that if our supply is cut off," Haverd adds.

Aloy leans back in her seat and looks at Vale. His arms are crossed and he sports the same plain face he had back when they were talking to Derrick, a face that makes him look like he's thinking, the gears in his head turning, which leads her to believe he's taking the matter seriously and not fighting to refuse their help. She was surprised when he didn't complain about accepting Avad's plea to find the Vanguard when they were so close to their then-current objective – finding the Master Override at the Spire – and diverting their quest. In fact it seemed no matter where she was going, he would follow without so much as a word.

When his gaze meets hers, there's the slightest dip of his head and Aloy nods to his approval.

"Where are the mines located?" she asks.

"Down the mountain path beyond the bridge. There's a fork in the road that goes deeper into the mountains. That's where the mines are," Haverd tells them as Olin gets up and walks over to the only bookshelf in the room. It's scarcely stocked with books and small tools except for the top shelf, which is packed full of scrolls. Olin seems to know what he's looking for, because it doesn't take him long to yank one of the scrolls out and bring it to the table. He unties the red ribbon and lays out the parchment, which reveals a map of the area. Though they already had the schematics of the land from the Tallneck, she observes the map anyway. She can see the trial that Haverd mentioned marked on the map and memorized its location.

"Any reason the machines started attacking?" she asks.

"They're Silvermanes. They attack our mines all the time," Haverd answers, and she raises her head.

"What's a Silvermane?"

"They don't have them in the south, Haverd," Olin replies and answers for him, "They're like Scrappers, except they eat raw metal, like the ore veins found underground. The tunnels are man-made, but sometimes we come across other tunnels made by Rockbreakers and Silvermanes. Since the machines started getting more dangerous, it's become harder to drive them out of the tunnels, and we need that metal ore."

"So clear out the mines, for what in return?" Vale prompts.

"A good pay, rations and supplies that'll get you through the Claim. We don't have the temperatures like Ban-ur does – thank the forge, but the snow might make your trip difficult," Haverd answers.

"And we're expecting snowfall in the next few days here," Olin adds.

"Alright, we'll do it. And we'll be on our way when it's done," Aloy says and rises to her feet.

"Olin will take you to the merchants to get fitted for the cold. Don't worry about paying for it. I'm already asking you to risk your lives for us," the mayor says. With final regards, they follow Olin without much more discussion and leave the building.

It's dark out and most of the townspeople have retreated to their homes. Aloy figures it must be close to midnight, and the thought of it makes her realize that she's extremely tired. They can't go to the mines tonight, she decides immediately. There would be plenty of time to search in the morning.

Olin brings them back to the marketplace, where only a few merchants are still occupying their stalls, but most of them are packing up and locking down their shops for the night. Luckily they manage to stop one of them before they completely close, the merchant happy to earn a few extra shards before the night ends. Even though Haverd has explained that they would get their garments for free, Olin offers to pay the man anyways.

There's a variety of clothing to choose from. Aloy can recognize Carja-style blouses and vests and even Banuk furs. There's nothing from the Nora here, but she picks out a very Nora-stylish fur robe that comes with a metal collar around the back and a hood, as well as extra furs for her Nora skirt, since her thin leggings are poor protection from the cold.

Vale picks up a one-off robe to cover his right bare arm and leave the other one free. It's padded with thick leather like the Oseram often wear, and it hooks across his torso and across his shoulders. It almost looks like he's half man, half machine when he puts it on.

"You look ridiculous," she says with a teasing grin.

"And you look like you're shivering," he quips back. It's never a better time for a chill to run through her body gently.

"We should go. Where are the Striders?"

"Outside the gates where we left them. I set up camp figuring we would be here a while."

"Good. Let's go."

"Aloy, wait!" Olin interrupts. "Can I have a word?"

She stares at him to try to read his thoughts, but Olin's a stoic man who doesn't reveal much in his expression, reminding her a lot of the other man standing beside her. She nods to Vale and he gives them the space by leaving for the town gates.

"I heard about the attack on Meridian a few months ago. I figured you must have had something to do with it. They say Helis' body was found in the wreckage," the Oseram says.

"He won't be hurting anyone else," she replies in a low tone, but Olin's broad smile is infectious.

"Hah! Fire and spit, girl. You really are a force to be reckoned with! No one's seen or heard of any Eclipse since the attack, either. How did you do it?"

"It's a long story, Olin. Maybe another time when I'm not busy," she says, not wanting to put the effort into explaining _that_ epidemic. The man nods in understanding.

"I noticed your friend was wearing a Focus, but not like one I've ever seen before. Where did he get it?"

Aloy thought about the question and realized that she didn't quite know the answer either. She knew that he had found it in some ruins, but he wasn't very elaborate about it, and the odd modification he had on it that allowed him to see so much more than she did made her all the more curious.

"I'm… not sure. There's still a lot I don't know about him," she admits. "But he's proved to be trustworthy so far, and he's a good hunter."

"He must be, if he can keep up with you," Olin agrees. "I meant to ask earlier, about your mother…"

She debates heavily on this question and it's weight, because it was her relation to Elisabet that started this whole quest in the first place, and that in itself was a good enough reason to at least give Olin some closure.

"I did find her. She was already long dead, but she left me some final words and a… gift," Aloy says, and remembers exactly where she kept the little ornament globe: on a thin rope tied around her neck and tucked under her scarf.

"I see. I'm sorry you never got to meet her, but I think she would have been proud of what you did."

"I know." There's a moment of silence that follows and it seems appropriate. When she first found Elisabet at her final resting place, there had been a beautiful arrangement of flowers surrounding her, similar to the kind that would surround the metal flowers she had discovered on her previous journey. She never disturbed it or added to the scene except take the globe with her as a family heirloom. Somehow she didn't think Elisabet would mind. "Really, Olin, I should be thanking you. If you had never talked to me I never would have found her and the world she loved so much would have ended."

Olin nods. "Hard to believe that a little bad can cause so much good. I wish there had been another way, but…"

"We do what we can with what we got," Aloy adds. "I should go. Goodbye, Olin."

"Goodbye, Aloy, and may the world never rest on your shoulders alone."

She turns and leaves for the gates. It's such an odd saying but she doesn't think Olin realizes the significance of it, and the more she thinks about it, the more she sees the legitimacy of it, and it fills her with mixed emotions. Of course she's proud to have handled the survival of the world on her own; she had always done things herself with little to no help since she was a little girl.

But the ignorance of other people stopped her from making any _real_ friends (Sylens hardly counted as a friend). Talanah, Olin, Varl, Nakoa. Of course she liked them all, but they just didn't share the same curiosity as she did. They didn't seek out the difficult questions nor wanted to learn about the world like she wanted to. No one did, and she hated it.

Her only ally in this was Vale.

It was time for more storytelling.

… … …

When she found Vale next, he was sitting at a small outcropping of rocks in the mountainside a few feet from the trail, a campfire already burning. His robe is pulled over his shoulders as he stares at the fire, sat on top of a smooth flat rock. Their Striders are standing behind the tents, facing forward and completely still because of the lack of grass in the area.

"The Striders won't move. I think they're running out of strength," he says as he watches her approach. She grimaces in annoyance.

"What wrong with them?"

"Don't know, exactly. Focus said 'internal energy conversation systems overheated' and 'power source depleted', whatever that means."

Aloy walks over to the pair of machines. Their usual metal clicks and chirps are silent. The blaze canisters on their backs are completely empty and the tubes that run along their backs are only filled with green bubbles and are hot to the touch. The bright blue light in their eyes has dimmed and the glow in their skin almost isn't there.

"These machines won't last much longer," she realizes. The machine's biomass conversion systems are worn down. They had been pushing these machines to their limits, draining their energy reserves faster than they could produce it, and up here in the cold mountains, there was hardly any grass or plant life for them to graze on. She doesn't see any wild clear green fields in the near future unless they went back down the path, but backtracking would cost them time.

Aloy dismounts her spear from her back and levels it towards the heart of the machine. "I'm sorry…" she whispers.

With a quick thrust, the machine twitches and collapses with a lack of sparks. The other machine jumps, but Aloy is quick and jabs it in the eye before it can get away. Vale watches in surprised silence as the machines fall victim to their master.

"Do you do that to all the machines you tame?" he asks after Aloy sits back down at the fire he's built.

"No, but there was no helping them out here. They were already dying, so it was only a matter of time. Really, it was just an act of mercy," she says, a little too plainly for her own liking.

"Hm, I didn't think you granted mercy to machines," he muses.

"It's no different than an injured animal."

"I suppose…"

They sit in relative silence as Aloy ponders over her thoughts from earlier, and how she should open up about her story of Elisabet, or anything about the rest of the story Vale didn't know yet. So far she only had time to tell him about what Hephaestus was and not much else, and he had never asked to know more since, which gave her a chance to think over her explanation and tell the story right.

"I guess I should tell you more about the truth," she offers, which brings the mercenary's gaze up to her.

"Guess so. What do you want to tell me about next?" he asks.

"I'm not sure. What do you _want_ to hear about?"

She almost regrets it immediately because she's afraid she know knows exactly what he's about to ask.

"How about your mother? Who was she?"

Well _crap_.

"That's a difficult story, Vale."

"So? Tell me in the best way that you can," he replies. "Who was she? What did she do?"

Al least he gives her a direction to go. She gives it some thought and is surprised that she can come up with a explanation in her head fairly quickly.

"She… wasn't really my mother, more like a distance ancestor. She lived back in the time of the Old Ones," she starts. She could see Vale drawing his full attention to her; his legs folded neatly under him and his back is straight. He studies her quietly with a blank expression.

"Go on…" he urges. So she goes on.

"She was brilliant with technology. She could create any machine necessary to make everyone's lives easier, and so she was considered one of the smartest people of her time. When her generation was on the brink of destruction, she created a machine that would bring back life to the world after it was all destroyed. They called it artificial intelligence, or AI for short. It was a machine mind created by humans, fully capable of making its own decisions. Except when Elisabet made the AI, she didn't just teach it to make decisions. She taught it how to feel and think and care. She named it Gaia, and there were sub AI's built to help her, Hephaestus and Hades being some of them, but they couldn't think for themselves. They were incomplete as AIs."

"So what made them complete? That voice back in the Cauldron. It sounded like it could make decisions, like killing us," Vale points out.

"I'm not sure. I read a message from Gaia, once. It said that she received a signal from some unknown location, and it made all her subordinate functions self-aware and think chaotically."

Vale shrugs. "So why doesn't this Gaia get them under control?"

"Because she's dead… technically," she answers. "When Hades became self aware, he started carrying out his designated duty; bring the earth's habitability back to zero so Gaia could start over. But life was already restored, so Gaia sacrificed herself to stop Hades from immediately ending all life on earth. And so Hades began searching for other means to end the world."

There's a moment of silence as Vale thinks. Realization hits him when his eyes open up slightly.

"The battle for the Spire…"

"You said you knew that the Old Ones destroyed themselves."

He nods. "I never knew how it happened. The machines that rose from the ground, they were ancient. I fought one of them in front of the Spire in my homeland. Was that it?"

"There were hundreds of them, all around the world. The Spires were built to shut them down, but Hades reversed the process and almost activated them all. I managed to kill him before that happened. Those machines were the reason Elisabet created Gaia. You couldn't defeat an army of them because they could create more of themselves. There was no way to effectively kill them all."

"So Gaia is… a creator of life," Vale sums up, nodding his head ever so slightly. "And Elisabet made her before her generation died so that life would continue after them."

"Yes! Exactly." She smiles broadly, unable to keep her excitement from showing. Finally there was someone in the world who was understanding why they were here, why the world was the way it was. Vale nods again in a final understanding and looks at the fire again. He doesn't seem troubled by this information at all, and whatever beliefs he had before, they don't seem to be clashing with this new idea Aloy had brought forth.

"So if that's what an AI is…" he mumbles.

"There are more than just Gaia and her sub functions," Aloy says. "As soon as we have the Master Override, we're going to visit a friendly AI over in the Cut. Hephaestus tried to control her once. She might know what Hephaestus is doing exactly and what we can do to stop it."

"You're friends with an AI," Vale says. Aloy shrugs sheepishly and rubs the side of her neck.

"Yeah. I know it sounds odd but…"

"Wait. If that's the case, than I'm friends with an AI too!" he exclaims. Aloy's head snaps back in his direction and she's unable to form words at first.

"You… are?" she asks. Vale nods again.

"I believe so. I used to think that it was just some spirit, but with the way you explained it, I'm almost sure it's the same. At the ruins of the Spire, there was an AI there. She helped me with the modifications on my Focus!" he explains. Her curiosity immediately kicks in and about a hundred questions popped up in her head at the same time.

"Who is it? How did you find it? What does it do?" she says excitedly. "I have to talk to it, see what it knows."

"It's a long ways a way, _and_ it's across the desert," he reminds her, and while the thought gives her some concern, she gives him a lopsided smile.

"Vale, I'm sure that between the two of us, we can make it. I'm more hardy than I look."

"I used to say that too, that's my point. And if time is a concern, I don't think you'd want to go the long way around."

"We'll find a way. I'm sure of it," she says. Vale dips his head and there's a tug on his lips. He had mentioned that he wasn't looking forward to the trip home, but it looked like he wasn't going to argue. "Vale, does the AI have a name?"

"Yeah it did," Vale says. He pauses for a moment, and Aloy gives him the chance to recall what the name is. What he says next nearly floors her.

"Minerva."

* * *

Surprise! Another sub function is revealed. Also this side quest has two parts because I wanted to a whole chapter to write about some new machines, but I didn't want to cram it all into just one chapter, so next week we'll finally see some new machines.


	12. Side-The Silver Mines Pt 2

**Side-The Silver Mines Pt. 2**

They leave for the mines early the next day, leaving the corpses of their old rides behind and carrying the rest of their provisions on their backs. The food, extra weapons and gear are all packed as neatly as can be and stuffed into a long bag that's strapped across Vale's shoulder, since he offered to carry it. It never slows him down, but the sound of the bag swinging back and forth as he walks grows irritable quickly.

It had started to snow midway into their trip. The grey clouds above threw down a gentle, thick fall of snowflakes all around them, making it almost a peaceful walk to the mines. It was serene enough that Aloy could focus her thoughts without interruption.

She was still shocked by what Vale told her last night. Minerva, the sub-function responsible for deactivating the Faro machines, was active, and had reached out to Vale. Of course she pelted him with about a million questions in the next instant: how were they able to communicate? How did Minerva behave after coming into contact with humans? What were it's designated duties? Aloy had to knew if she was dealing with another hostile AI.

According to the mercenary, she wasn't. Minerva had communicated with Vale through his Focus and asked him for help. The AI had explained to him that her systems had been dormant for hundreds of years, having completed its duties long ago. Apparently, the signal Aloy had sent out to the other Spires had woken her up her systems and it began frantically looking for a source and a way to send a signal back, trapped in the ruined Spire and the systems there damaged. Luckily short range relays managed to reach out to Vale and bring the two of them together, where they then learned of each other and how Vale learned of Aloy.

It was a fascinating tale, and now she began to see a plan for in her head, small and maybe hopeful, but full of possibilities. One that involves bringing the sub-functions together and restoring Gaia so she could take over the terraforming process.

But several problems still presented themselves. Hades was gone, Hephaestus was angry at them and Apollo was deleted.

It was better to focus on one task at a time.

They were coming up on the entrance of the mines. There were wooden beams built around the entrance and several empty carts and piles of rubble around the entrance. Tools were scattered through the place and what looked like a shelter at one point had collapsed.

"Looks like there was a fight here," Vale observes. Aloy activates her Focus and looks around. Her blood turns cold when she identifies a human body on the ground, already covered in snow. She walks up to the body and lightly sweeps the snow off. A male, Oseram, was face down in the snow with a wound in his back.

"Or they were trying to escape the machines," she says. Vale comes to look over her shoulder and grunts. Aloy looks ahead. There doesn't seem to be any other sign of the dead, but she suspects that they'll find more inside the mines. She rises to her feet.

"How are we going to do this?" she ponders aloud. Vale drops their gear on the ground and rolls his shoulders back to relieve the ache.

"Not sure. These tunnels could go on for miles. I won't know where to start," he says. But Aloy does. She slowly approaches the tunnels entrance and scans the area with her Focus. From the outside, it's pitch black inside the tunnel and she can hardly see anything inside. But she can find footprints on the ground not touched by the snow. She crouches and runs her hand over the shape of the footprint. It's definitely made by a machine.

"I've never seen tracks like these before," she mutters. They aren't the only pair of tracks. There are several of them, in fact, going in and out of the mines. Vale joins her. He's holding her tripcaster.

"Ready to get started?" he asks. She stands up and nods and takes her weapon. Tagging the trial, they begin the long delve into the mines.

Vale holds out his maul and lights its flame, giving them a source of light because there are none in the caves. What they do come across are wall-mounted touches that have long since burnt out, and beyond the reach of their light is complete darkness. It has Aloy on edge like nothing she's ever experienced before. She feels trapped.

They walk through tunnel for what feels like hours before they come across anything interesting. Aloy's eyes dart around as something flashes in her peripheral vision.

"Stop," she demands. Vale halts in his tracks and looks at her expectingly. So far the tunnel hasn't branched off yet and the air is still cold, the rock walls almost seem to be glittering. In the light of the flame, she can barely see a little gleaming light coming off the rock. She sweeps her hand over it and rubs the dirt between her fingers. "Shiny dirt?" she mumbles.

Not dirt; metal. Her Focus labels it as iron ore.

"Raw metal," she realizes. "This must be what the Oseram use to make their weapons and armour."

"The machines are after this too. But why?" Vale asks.

"I'm not sure."

A sound echoes across the tunnel and they both turn towards it, weapons ready. It sounds like a howl, not quite like a Ravager's, but more high-pitched, and it isn't the only one. There are several howls that come from the tunnel ahead.

"That's definitely not a Rockbreaker," Aloy quips.

"Must be the Silvermanes," Vale says and pulls his shield off his back. "I'm not sure what to expect."

"Neither do I," Aloy replies and primes her tripcaster with explosive wire. "But we'll figure it out."

Vale gave her a look that she wasn't sure was uncertainty or not. She thought she recognized the odd curl in his eyebrows, but it vanishes before Aloy could decide what it was and he looks forward and continues walking.

Coming up to their first fork, Aloy leads them down the left tunnel, and it winds into a curve that slopes downward. She can't tell if it's just their slow pacing or that the tunnel is long, but it feels like they go on forever into the darkness. A new feeling claustrophobia arises in her. She's so used to hunting in the wide open world where fresh air filtered through her lunges and the breeze always brushed her skin. The air in the tunnel was stale, unlike the ruins of the Metal World. It was enough to make her mind panic with wild thoughts and a powerful urge to turn around.

She's so lost in those thoughts that she runs into Vale's back, which stirs her back into reality. The man looks back at her.

"Sorry," she whispers and dips her head.

It doesn't seem to bother him because he responses immediately with; "There's something ahead."

There is another source of light that peeks through the crack of a wall of a dead end tunnel. Aloy approaches it, realizing that the wall is really just a pile of broken earth that plugs up the hole. The dirt and rock is damp under her fingers.

"This pile has been moved recently," she says.

"We must be on the right track then. How do we get through?" Vale asks.

"We shouldn't blast through. These tunnels carry sound too easily. The blasting will alert them to our position, and then we'll be cornered." Aloy activates her Focus again. She doubts there would be anything around here for her to scan, but it was a good habit to have.

But surprisingly there is. There's a device on the other side of the blockade; some odd contraption that's hooked up to a sparker. She takes her spear and jams it into the rocks and starts prying away the fallen rubble. Vale joins her and they begin making short work of the blockage.

When more light starts leaking through, Aloy starts digging with her hands and pulls the loose rocks away until the hole they make is big enough for her to crawl through. She pushes her weapons through first and then wiggles her way in.

When she's finally through, she shakes off all the dirt that's clung to her clothes and hair, and is silently thankful that she's still wearing the winter robe she bought.

On the other side of the fallen earth mound is more complete darkness except for a single bright white light that's aimed directly at her. It's too bright for her to look at, but as she gets closer, Aloy sees a bundle of wires on the ground next to the light and a familiar shape of a sparker next to them. The light comes from some source of light that's magnified by a round lens and powered by the sparker. The Focus picks up a signal from close by and Aloy follows the outline of a power cable to a large machine.

It's clearly made by the Oseram. A wooden trapezoid-shaped frame supports the strange machine that's mounted in the middle. The Focus identifies a generator of rough make, but it looks functional. She finds a lever and pulls on it and the machine comes to life. Soon, other lights mounted on the ceiling and walls light up and give shape to the cavern she finds herself in.

"What did you find?" Vale shouts from the tunnel. Aloy is temporarily amazed by the man-made cavern and unable to answer right away. It's nothing like the underground ruins she's explored, but there's a small thrilling thump in her veins begging her to explore them.

But these caves are dangerous, and she reminds herself of that before she turns and goes back to the blocked tunnel to start digging out some more dirt and rock. The sound of her digging spurs Vale to start digging too, and soon the hole is much bigger than before and he's able to squeeze through.

He gives the caverns a once over with his gaze. "This must be where the miners set up their operation."

"I don't see any sign of the machines. There's no trail," Aloy says. The ground is mostly rock and dirt, and dozens of human footprints cover the ground in nearly every inch of it. If there ever was a machine track here, than humans had come along after and covered them up.

"There's an entrance on the other side of the cavern. We might find something there," Vale points out. Aloy can see it, another gap in the wall with nothing but darkness behind it. They both made their way over to it, and the closer they got the more Aloy realizes the darkness beyond isn't actually darkness. A source of natural light is coming from above and the temperature drops as they get closer. It's another cavern, and it's much bigger.

It's a natural formation. A huge ravine runs across the open space, and at the top the earth is cracked open to reveal open sky and snowflakes gently fall through the crack, covering a small patch of dirt in the centre where the light shines. Aloy realizes it must be midday at this, because the rays of light are shining down perfectly straight, and reflect off the snow to illuminate the ravine more. There are several tunnels that run off into the earth, either natural or machine made, but there are human tools and equipment scattered all around, including another generator-like machine, but this one is much larger.

"So much open space… it's like the earth is cracked open," Aloy admires breathlessly, gazing up at the far-off ceiling. The air is fresh, and the snow chill revitalizes her senses from dulling in the dark tunnels.

"Aloy, look."

Vale points towards the snow. She never noticed it at first, but now she can make out the shapes of human remains lightly buried in snow. A few bodies are laid across the floor as well as a few weapons of plain make.

"The miners. They never had a chance," she states and looks around at all the tunnels that lead to nowhere. "They must have been surrounded."

"There's machine tracks everywhere," Vale adds, his Focus lit "and there's some sort of device mounted up on the rocks there."

He's pointing to the generator on the other side of the cavern. Aloy can see several wires sprawling out from the machine to other light devices that aren't powered. Maybe if they turned the machine on they would have more light.

"I'm going to go check it out," she tells him and makes her way across the chasm. There's a ladder that brings her up to the generator. A large mass of wires that come out of the back of it and each wire connects to a light that's placed somewhere throughout the ravine. Aloy finds a switch and pulls it, but the generator doesn't start. All she hears is the snap of lightning coming from within the machine, followed by a puttering sound and a bit of smoke arises from the top.

She climbs over the machine and traces the smoke, letting her Focus guide her through the machine's inner workings. This thing has been assembled with Gaia's machine parts, because the Focus can identify specific parts that she scans. She finds a power source, a small battery that's covered in green corrosion the conductive spark plug in the middle is charred black.

"I need a power source!" she yells down at Vale. Vale pulls something from his belt and tosses it up to her.

"A charge port for my cannon," he says. "It should be enough power."

"Let's hope so," she replies quietly and sticks it into the machine. It's not made for the generator and so it's awkward to fit in, but she manages to jam it into place and she climbs down to try the lever again. This time it works, and the machine comes to life with a whirl and lights start popping on throughout the cave.

She hears a growl and reaches for her bow.

Then she hears more growls.

And many more.

"It's them!" Vale shouts. Aloy can see it; a dozen machines are revealed in the light, crowded in groups of three or two around piles of rock. These machines are about the size of a Scrapper, but they have giant tails that glow with blue lights, and along their backs is a shimmering metal that goes all the way up to their heads, where the lights in their eyes are glowing a panicked red.

"The Silvermanes!" Aloy exclaims. The machines all give a unified howl and start charging towards them. "Vale, get up here! There's too many!"

As the machines race towards them, Vale rushes for the ladder and climbs it in an efficient manner, reaching the top in a manner of three large leaps. The machines couldn't follow him and so they stared up at them with angry glares.

But Aloy sees the machines tails light up. That blue light intensifies and some of the Silvermanes turn to point their tails right up at them. She ducks as several blue lasers fire at her and barely miss, charring the wall behind her. She grabs her bow and waits to rebuttal with arrows, but the lasers are firing at them nonstop.

Vale manages to create an open for her when he fires his cannon a few times and puts damage on some of the machines. She fires her arrows with precision aiming and lands her shots in lenses and components. The tails of the machines have a metal plate that protects the laser component inside, but with some hard point arrows she manages to shatter them and get to the vulnerable weakness underneath.

Vale pulls something from his pouch and tosses it into the crowd of machines below. It latches onto one of the Silvermanes faces and the machine tries to shake it off, but it holds firm. Vale's hand lifts to his Focus, and a second later the device explodes, destroying the machine and inflicting damage on the other Silvermanes around it.

It gives Aloy an idea.

"How many of those do you have?" she asks as she dodges another laser.

"Half a dozen still," he answers quickly.

"And you can set them to explode?"

"Yeah, a wireless signal from my Focus. Why? You got a plan?"

"Yeah! If you place the explosives along one of the tunnels and lure the machines into it…"

"I can bring the tunnel down on the machines," Vale finishes, realizing her plan. "Alright, I'll go place my charges. You can hold it out here?"

"I'll be fine. Go!"

Vale turns and runs the other way, jumping down from the rocks that provide them safety from the machines and starts running for one of the caves nearby. As soon as he reaches the mouth of the tunnel, he turns and fires at the machine's with multiple shots to get their attention. The Silvermanes bark angrily and shift their focus to him and Vale disappears into the tunnel. Aloy waits behind cover as the machines leave, their barks and cries fading into the distance as they enter the tunnel.

Aloy relaxes, but it's a short-lived break. There's no shaking of explosions, instead a soft rumbling beneath her feet, constant, and getting closer and louder. It's a feeling that Aloy recognizes and she braces herself.

In the middle of the ravine where the snow is falling, the ground explodes and a large machine reveals itself. It's giant grinding maws whirl into motion as the Rockbreaker spits chucks of rock at her. Aloy dives for cover behind the man-made generator and the rocks pummel it, denting the metal and knocking loose wires, which cuts power to some of the lights in the caves, including the one Vale escaped into.

There's no place for her tripcaster here, and her bow feels insufficient when taking on a large machine like a Rockbreaker. Her new power bow and blast sling were both left with their things outside, and Vale was the one with the heavy tools. She had to come up with another strategy.

She scans her environment for anything and finds a convenient solution. Barrels full of blaze and other manual rock-breaking tools are piled around some of the tunnels around the underground ravine. The Oseram must have used the blaze to blast away the rocks and make their tunnels. It's a handy hazard to have around for when a Rockbreaker ever showed up, but she had to avoid getting swallowed up and ground into human bits first.

Aloy fires one fire arrow before she leaps onto the lower level. The arrow having found one of the lenses of the machine, the Rockbreaker stops its rock hurdling and disappears underground. She can feel the ground quake through her feet as the machine barrows it's way towards her. She sprints as fast as she can. Even getting _close_ to the blaze would be good enough, she just need to set it off with the Rockbreaker nearby to do any real damage.

The machine surfaces with a lateral leap from behind towards her. She dives out of the way, forgetting about any finesse and lands on her side. The machine skids to a stop and slithers around to face her. The blaze pile is right behind it.

The huntress fires a flaming arrow and sends the barrel up in flames. The blaze splashes onto the machine's back and catches it aflame, burning the metal and the wires and damaging the exhaust venting component on its back. Aloy's never heard a machine squeal before, but the sound the Rockbreaker makes as it squirms is very akin to one. It burrows its way underground in a hurry and it gives Aloy a chance to run to another barrel of blaze.

This time the machine takes longer to appear. The vibrations are close and Aloy can sense the machine surfing underneath right to left through her feet. She stomps on the ground to get the machines's attention, knowing it's hearing radar would lure it her way.

"Come out and get me!" she exclaims. The vibrations get worse and Aloy jumps to the side as the ground explodes.

The Rockbreaker rises above her as it swallows a barrel of blaze instead. The liquid splatters all over the machine's maw and eyes and head. When it comes down, Aloy already has a fire arrow ready and she lets it loose. The blaze goes up immediately, engulfing the machine in more flames. The machine flails in a wasted attempt to put the fire out and eventually stops moving as spark begin flying out of its circuits. It's dead.

She hears footsteps and sees Vale coming down one of the tunnels. He stops when he spots the dead machine behind her, almost stuttering in his step, but his helmet is on so it's tough to read his expression.

"Whoa…" he manages to say.

"What?" Aloy replies. "It's just a dead Rockbreaker."

He snickers. "Yeah, it's _just_ a Rockbreaker." He removes his helmet. There's a fine gleam of sweat on his forehead. Either his helm doesn't allow any venting, or he's really worked up an effort with the other machines. "The Silvermanes are dealt with. Probably not destroyed but they'll be buried under rock for a long time."

"Good. I think we've dealt with most of the machines in the area. The miners should be able to collect their metal safely now."

"Until more machines move in. Who knows how long all these tunnels go on for. I just about got lost trying to get back," Vale says. It makes Aloy think for a moment. Speaking of getting back, they needed to find their way out of the mines back to the entrance, and to the weapons that Aloy sorely missed in this fight. However…

"You said not all of the machines were destroyed when you collapsed the tunnels?" she asks.

"It's likely. I had to space out my charges along the tunnel, so there's probably an open pocket there somewhere where a machine survived. Why?"

She grabs her spear and flips it to the end where her Corruptor tech sits strapped to her weapon. "Show me where it happened. I have an idea."

Vale looks at her questioningly, but he shrugs and leads her back down the tunnels, not bothering to strip the bigger machine for parts because they have no way to carry it all.

The tunnel lights have gone dark, so Vale uses his fire weapon to guide them again and Aloy keeps her Focus active as they walk through the darkness until she can see the outline of a hostile machine through the walls. A single familiar shape of a machine sits behind a section of the tunnel that's collapsed, preventing it from going anywhere, and it doesn't have the means to move the rocks on its own, so it just sits there clawing at the rocks helplessly.

"There's one of them here," Vale points out. "What's your idea all about?"

Aloy shows her the butt end of her spear, realizing that this is the first time she's ever shown him. He looks at it curiously, and suddenly his Focus lights up on its own.

"My Focus. What's going on?"

"It's connecting to your Focus wirelessly," she tells him. "This is ancient technology used by the Old Ones. I can override machines with this."

"You override them? This is how you tame them?" he asks, looking at the device with curious uncertainty. She nods.

"Any machine I plug this into becomes mine to command."

"Okay, so you want to tame the Silvermane? I don't think it'll just give in and take orders," he says. Aloy rolls her eyes and points at the rope tied to his hip.

"No, you'll have to hold it down for me so I can override its systems. It's not a big machine, so you should be able to handle it." She gives the blockade a good look. "But we need to figure out how to get through first."

Vale turns to the collapse as well and pulls something from the back of his belt.

"I still have one charge left," he says. Aloy grins and points to the pile of rocks. He places it as far into the rocks as he can go and backs away. A second later, a loud bang goes off as the charge explodes. Dust envelopes them, and through the clouds Aloy can see two red headlights peer through, looking right at her.

But she also sees a blue line of electricity whip around and snare the Silvermane around the neck before it can jump at her and Vale jumps on top of the machine, wrestling it to the ground in a quick scuffle. Aloy waits for her chance and presses her spear into the machines's head while Vale has it in a headlock. The machine freezes until the device completes its override and becomes completely calm.

Vale rises and looks at the machine in astonishment, and then at her spear.

"How does that thing work, exactly?"

"I robbed it off of a Corruptor. It allows them to take control of other machines and make them fight for it. Unfortunately all the Corruptors and Deathbringers were shut down when I purged Hades, so I'm not sure I could find another device that works," she explains. A flash of disappointment runs across the man's face, but he shrugs it away and ties up his rope.

"So now we have a Silvermane under our control. What were we planning on doing with it?"

She shrugs. "Make it carry our stuff for us. At least until we can find some more Striders to override."

"Oh."

They both stare at the machine in silence. The Silvermane is standing still, it's glimmering metal spine shining faintly in the light of Vale's flame.

"Can we get out of these mines now?" Vale finally asks. She nods gratefully and they begin finding their way back out of the network of tunnels.

* * *

The Silvermane, a new machine, has wires, sparker, lens and heart and a special laser component as retrievable resources, if we were speaking game sense here. A artwork concept of the Silvermane is planned, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. If anyone with art skills (traditional or digital) feels like attempting it, feel free and I will feature it something with credits due.

Next week, we continue our quest to find Erend.


	13. Terror of the Skies Pt 1

**Terror of the Skies Pt. 1**

-Deep in the territory of the Oseram, Aloy and Vale begin their search for Erend and the missing Vanguard…

* * *

Two more days in their journey into the Oseram territory, the two of them decide to make another stop at a small village named Maine's Gate for a night. The weather in the Claim is cold and the light snow powdering the ground makes it tough to travel – with their obedient Silvermane companion carrying most of their extra gear without so much as a single sign of struggle – so for once Aloy is thankful when Vale suggests they acquire some accommodations at the village's small lodge.

It was really a strategic decision. They were getting close to the Capital of Mainspring and the ravine where the Vanguard had been ambushed by machines was less than a day away now. They would need every ounce of strength and every minute of rest if they were to hunt down this machine and track the missing Vanguard. Aloy only hoped that they weren't too late and that Erend was still holding out somewhere.

The lodge beds were in a private section of a pub that hosted all sorts of travellers, and thankfully so. The public area was mostly occupied by Oseram merchants and mercenaries, and they were all so _noisy_ that it was almost like they were standing in the middle of Meridian market on a busy day, and all Aloy wanted to do was think. She secluded herself in the room for two they rented for the rest of the night and attempted to get some shut-eye with the Oseram screaming and cheering not far away.

It was a surprise to her when she awakes the next morning, feeling decently rested. In the other separate bed, Vale is already gone, but his armour and gear are still sitting by the bed, so he can't be far away. Aloy digs into her bag of things and comes across her tech-heavy armour and makes a split-second decision to put it on. If they were ever to run into trouble, of which she absolutely expects to happen, she would need the extra protection.

She begins strapping on the armour, which is a complicated and time-consuming process, but it's a task she bares willingly. The shield weaving technology has saved her life multiple times, and it works better than any other weave modification she's ever equipped to her person. The other outfits she's acquired over her journey almost feel obsolete compared to this technological marvel.

Thinking of her weave mods, she goes to her satchel where she keeps them. There's a handful of them, all of them different elemental types, and they work the same way her shield weave does. She already has a few on her bow and slings, but her newly acquired bow has no such tech on it.

She also thinks of her companion. She wonders if Vale knows anything about weave mods. Not many people did.

She continues to strap on her armour. The torso is the most annoying to get on. A few leather straps cross her back where a row of metal plating covers her spine, but the piece right between her shoulder blades is difficult for her reach. When she first made this armour, she didn't think to make it convenient to put on. Hence why she didn't wear it often.

"Do you need a hand?" she hears and freezes halfway trying to reach for the straps at her back. Vale is standing in the doorway. He has no armour on and his clothing underneath consists of a black shirt with no right sleeve and belted leggings with a half-skirt draped over his right hip. He looks just as ridiculous as he does with his armour _on_ , but it doesn't seem to concern him. There's a sympathetic look on his face and two bowls of steaming hot stew of some kind in his hands. It smells delicious, but Aloy is petrified in embarrassment.

"Uh… I mean, if you could?" she stutters. Vale puts the bowls down on the nightstand sitting between their beds and takes a seat behind her. He plays with the straps and Aloy can feel the armour tightening around her body.

"I didn't think you were the armour type," he says casually.

"Some situations call for a little extra metal. And if these machines are as dangerous as Avad says they are, I'll need the protection," she explains.

"It doesn't even cover that much of you," he replies. The tugging stops as Vale finishes fastening the armour. Aloy goes to her Focus and finds the shield wireless power activation, and suddenly her body is enveloped in a blinking wave of red light that fades into white and disappears.

"Whoa," the man mumbles. She turns to him and smirks.

"It has other benefits."

She gets up and finds the head piece sitting on the counter and straps it around her forehead. The shield boots up and forms around her head in a glimmering white light before turning invisible.

"I've never seen armour do _that_ before," Vale observes. "What is it exactly?"

"Armour made by the Old Ones," Aloy grabs her spear and sits back down on the bed. "As their world was being consumed by the Faro Plague, the air became unbreathable. So they made these suits of armour so they could breathe, and for fighting the machines. They were able to fabricate a magnetic wave that protects the body from damage, head to toe."

"How did you get a hold of it?" he asks, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, curious.

"There's a bunker hidden underground in the Sacred Land where a full suit had been waiting for me. I tore it apart and made this outfit myself."

Vale nods, impressed. "How come the Nora haven't touched it if it's sitting right in their homeland."

"They're afraid of technology, or anything that doesn't make sense to them, for that matter," she answers in a hard retort. "The ruins of the Old Ones in particular. They think they're cursed and that ghosts haunt them."

The man raises an eyebrow and looks like he's about to ask more, but he doesn't and it leaves a silent gap between them. Aloy finds she doesn't like it.

"What about the Lakota? What do they think about the Old Ones?" she inquires. Vale thinks about his answer a few seconds before he shrugs.

"I'm not sure. I'm not really around them that much."

Aloy looks at him in surprise. "You're not?"

"No."

"Were you… cast out?"

Vale gives her a weird look. "Why would they do that? I provided for the tribe. Among the Lakota, you can either become a labourer or a mercenary, and most of the shards you make as a mercenary go to the families back home who can't do either."

Aloy feels foolish for asking and fidgets with her spear. "Oh… and so you became a mercenary."

"Eventually I did, ran a crew of my own for a while and we took jobs across the land, working for many to send back to our families. Most of us were from the same seaside village, so we worked pretty well together."

"Were they the same people that died fighting the Faro machine beside you?" she asks cautiously. The man nods silently as his gaze lowers to the floor.

"They were. Some of them I even knew since childhood. To bury them was… hard."

Aloy finds she can't sympathize with something like this. She's had no lifelong friends or many real close friends. To imagine the pain Vale is going through is unimaginable, but she can offer empathy, but losing someone she cares for was a pain she had felt too, when Rost died. So she places her hand gently on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry Vale. I think they would be proud to know how far you've come. You're carrying a legacy that's hard for one man to carry alone."

Vale looks at her hand on his shoulder and then up at her. With poor lighting in the room, there's no shining sparkle in his eyes, only grief, but Aloy finds herself looking deeper, trying to distinguish the retina and blue irises in the dark. In the middle of her search, Vale smiles.

"You're pretty good at the whole people thing."

Skittishly, she removes her hand and twirls her fingers in her hair instead and clears her throat.

"I guess I'm just gifted in that sort of thing. Should we get going?"

"Right, I'll be ready in a few minutes here." Vale begins strapping his own armour on as Aloy gathers her things and starts eating the stew that he brought in. She sends a signal to the Silvermane waiting outside the village and tells it to meet them out on the road by the gates, just far enough that hopefully none of the villagers would see it.

A thought comes across her mind as they get ready to move, something Vale had said. She understands now that the Lakota work for other people to send an income back to the tribe, including Vale, and that sticks with her in a revelation that she's never thought of before, and something she's never had.

Vale has a family. And they're probably waiting for him to come home.

… … ...

It's a tense moment when Aloy first spots the ravine in the distance. The mountains have flatted into low hills and the odd outcropping of trees here and there, because the Oseram liked to cut down the forest around them for their forges and contraptions. She can see the cliffs of the ravine as they come to the top of a hill on the road. She stares at it in silence, a gentle breeze picking up her hair and fur robes and for some reason her heart is beating faster with anticipation.

"The ravine where the Vanguard was attacked," Vale says beside her.

"We should look for signs, anything that suggests they might have gotten away," she sputters. Vale points to something in the distance.

"Looks like something man-made over there. That's where we should start."

They make their way over to the structures he's referring to, and the closer they get the more Aloy realizes that it's a camp. Skins stitched together make up several small tents and a few fireplaces are scorched and long since burnt out that the coals had turned white. Nothing more than empty sacks and tools lay on the ground inside the tents, but there are a few tankards in the ground that help her conclude who had once occupied this space.

"The Vanguard, they made camp here before descending into the ravine," Aloy speaks.

"There's barely anything here," Vale adds. Aloy lights her Focus. It can't detect any footprints under the light snowfall, but there are a number of anomalies inside the tents. She checks one such tent and finds a stash of supplies; medical herbs, shards and even an echo shell. Someone had left these behind.

Aloy takes the stash for her own and puts it away in the pouches in her belt. "There's nothing else here. We should go to the ravine."

"If any of the Vanguard did survive, where would they go?" Vale asks, but she doesn't have an answer for him. She leaves the question hanging in the air as she leaves the campgrounds and makes her way to the ravine. The cliffs allow her to find a steady way down to the bottom, where more snow has lightly blanketed everything.

It's not hard for her to find the first body, however.

It's one of the Vanguard. The body is splattered with what looks like burn marks all over his chest, something that a Ravager's cannon would leave behind. She can see more scorch marks along the walls of the crevice and further ahead are more bodies.

She turns them all over, pulls their helmets off, but fortunately none of them are Erend. It leaves a bad taste in her mouth to be concerned only about him and not about her fallen comrades here. Some of them had probably fought with her at the Spire. But for Erend there is still hope. She can do nothing for these men here.

She can hear Vale's footsteps crunch the snow behind her. "They all fell here."

"Aloy, there's a _lot_ of bodies here," he says, voice full of uncertainty, and she hates it.

"I know, but we have to find out if anyone survived," she replies and rises to her full height. There are more burn marks along the wall, but her Focus picks up a different anomaly. Along the walls there are boulders, and they're cracked open in a particular way that suggests something big and heavy hit it.

"Something hit these rocks recently," Vale observes. "Look at all the debris. Whatever did this took a lot of force."

"It must have been the machines that attacked them." Aloy looks at the ground around the rocks. Bits of stone and dirt are all over, but she finds a piece of metal and picks it up. "This must have fallen from the machine."

"Let me see that," Vale demands and holds out his hand. He examines it with his Focus for a few seconds and nods. "Whatever this material is, it's different from what the other machines are made of. This is highly heat resistance."

"Is it made of the same metal from the machine that attacked the Nora gates?"

"Yes, but still different somehow. This is heavy metal. Whatever this machine is has weight to it."

"So that explains the broken rocks…"

"And why the Vanguard's fire arrows didn't work," Vale confirms.

"Let's check the other end of the ravine. Maybe they escaped somewhere," Aloy suggests. Vale nods and they continue searching the area for evidence. More bodies and signs of battle are all over the ravine floor, and at the other end is nothing but a wall. Interestingly enough, Aloy finds a crack in the walls, barely noticeable because it's hidden behind a large chunk of rock. There's another body lying face down in front of it, and Aloy can feel a breeze coming through, giving her hope. "Vale! Come look at this!"

Vale finds her behind the rock and glances down at the body.

"I think they escaped through here. This crack is big enough for both of us to fit through," she says.

"Then let's find out where it goes and follow them," the mercenary replies. Aloy pushes herself through the empty space in the rocks. Inside, there are tracks for her to follow, untouched by the snow outside. She can see a few pairs of them, giving her hope that some of the Vanguard had gotten away.

The crevice narrows before it splits. Aloy stops and observes both ways, finding footprints leading into either direction. She can't tell which one is Erend's tracks, or how much farther either path goes on for.

"I think we should split up," she begins.

"What?" Vale speaks up. His tone suggests he's not in favour of the idea.

"There's two of us and two paths. I'll take the end on the left. If we don't find anything in an hour, we'll meet back here."

Vale doesn't look too sure of her plan. He gives a good long look down both paths before finally saying; "In an hour."

"One hour," she affirms. The man gives her a nod and starts treading his own path as Aloy goes the other way. For the first little bit there's nothing. She has to light a fire arrow to be able to see where she's going, but the breeze is getting stronger and the air is still chilly.

She finds another body on the floor and turns it over. It's not Erend, but it's another one of his Vanguard brothers. She wonders what Erend must feel like, losing all his men to this new machine. It can't feel good, and it leaves her with an empathetic emotion similar to the one when they had found his sister under Dervahl's camp.

She hopes this doesn't turn out to be anything like that.

Finally, Aloy comes upon a rock wall. There are ledges that lead up to an open gap and out into the open. She's silently thankful for it, as she's had her fill of dark tunnels thanks to the Oseram's mining tunnels, and so she climbs it hastily and with ease until she gets to the top. There, she finds the ground covered in snow once again and no other leads. There's no signs of any other human or machine activity.

Aloy pulls out the map in her Focus. The land in her area is mostly flat except for the jagged cliffs to her left, which are huddled close together. There's some odd shapes beyond the cliffs that suggest civilization, but she'll have to go around them to see and know for sure. It looks like a twenty minute walk from here, which gives her plenty of time to get there and back and meet up with Vale. She begins walking.

The snow has stopped falling, but the breeze continues and the sun is hiding behind clouds, giving the atmosphere a dull grey and gloomy feel to it. It doesn't sit well with Aloy, when she's so close to finding Erend. She's come so far now that finding him anything other than alive would seem cruel. Suddenly she has a new understanding of Vale's conviction from when they first met, how he had come so far for his answers and she's glad she's allowed him to come along.

Aloy finally rounds the cliffs and stops in her tracks.

It's the biggest Oseram village – no, _city_ – that she's come across. It's bordered by stone walls and towers and the buildings inside are the biggest she's ever seen. It's still not as grand as Meridian, but it's size is pretty similar.

"That must be Mainspring," Aloy speaks to herself. She gazes out at the size of it, noting that the towers are lit with bonfires and faint black billows of smoke are rising into the air.

But she takes a closer look and finds that they aren't the only source of smoke. There's more trails of fire and smoke along the walls, telltale signs of an attack. A flash of an explosion goes off and that's all the convincing Aloy needs to spur herself into action, sprinting straight for the battle. She didn't know who was fighting what, and she didn't need to. The answers were likely in this day and age, and she was never one to stand aside and watch people get attacked.

She prepares her arrows on the run, finding her tearblast arrows and hardpoint arrows. Her spear was on her back and thankfully, for once, her sling was with her as well. After the last two times of having missed that weapon, she finally took it from her bag of spare of weapons and slung it to her belt, along with a satchel of blast bombs. She would be ready for anything.

Or so she thought until she finally came upon the scene of the battle.

The first thing she witnesses was a man in Oseram armour get blasted across the air several feet. When he hits the ground, he doesn't move again, and more armoured soldiers take his place in front of him. They carry heavy weapons like mauls and axes and one of them even carries a heavy artillery device levelled at his hip. Aloy looks for the source of the explosion and finds a Thunderjaw flailing about. Other soldiers flee as it stomps around angrily and fires its disc launchers at the soldiers, and all of them make a mad dash to avoid the missiles. But some of the soldiers are hit, including the one carrying the heavy fire weapon.

Aloy's rises her bow on instinct and fires away her tearblast arrows. They land exactly where they're meant too; between the mounts that hold the disc launchers to the Thunderjaw's body. With a blast of air they pop right off and the machine wriggles restlessly and brings its gaze up to her.

Aloy's already on the move, running into the battlefield with her sling. She lobs a few bombs at the Thunderjaw and blows apart the armour along its body. She drops to her knees and slides along the ground as it fires its dual cannons at her, blue bolts whizzing by her face but never hitting her. She lobs two more sticky bombs on its underside and runs to put distance between them before they go off a few seconds later, shattering the chillwater canisters and doing enough damage to kill the beast. It falls onto its side in a mess of sparks and smoke, but it's far from the end of the battle as Aloy figures out when she gets to her feet.

"More Thunderjaws?" she questions incredulously as two more gigantic machines walk among the field, red eyes shining at the Oseram who stand in front of the gates. Their mounted weapons fire in a flurry of missiles and explosions rock the ground. Even with so many soldiers, many would fall to the machines wrath if something wasn't done soon.

Aloy stops herself from charging forth when she thinks of her missing partner. There would be no time for her to go back and meet him in time if she got caught up in this fight, but she didn't want to leave the Oseram to fight for themselves. She brought her Focus online and searched for her machine links. The Silvermane she had overridden was still waiting somewhere. If she could make it search for Vale through the signal on his Focus, it could bring him here.

But trying to figure that out in the middle of a battle was dangerous. She leaves it alone for now and her attention instead turns to the bigger weapon that the Oseram soldier had dropped earlier, not far away from her. It looks heavy but not complicated. There was a barrel and there was a handle, which was simple enough for her. Picking it up with a grunt, she aims the weapon at one of the Thunderjaws which is currently still, aiming its disc launchers at the human forces.

The weapon kicks back with force as a cylinder object bursts out of the cannon and fires at the machine with a tail of fire behind it. It collides with the side of the Thunderjaw and explodes with a great crash, staggering the machine. Aloy adjusts her grip on the weapon and fires again, the missile destroying the radar module on the machine's back. Enraged, the machine turns to her, but she fires again and shoots it right in the face.

The Oseram warriors continue to fight the other machine as Aloy empties the heavy weapon's clip into the Thunderjaw until it falls over, a smoking mess of wires and metal. She drops the weapon and grabs her new bow, loosing metal arrows on the last machine until it is also defeated. By then the Thunderjaw's weapons have already done significant damage to the walls and the Oseram forces defending it. There are casualties that Aloy feels terrible about; if her curious drive had led her any faster they could have been prevented, but there's nothing she can do.

One of the Oseram soldiers approaches her.

"You fight like a wildfire, girl. I've never seen an Oseram charge into battle with such ferocity before! Oh, but excuse me, you're not Oseram, are you? You're clearly foreign."

She nods and mounts her bow to her back. "No, I'm Nora."

This stirs a curious whistle from the soldier. "Nora, huh? Don't see many of your kind up here in the Claim. What are you doing so far away from home?"

"I'm looking for someone, another Oseram man by the name of Erend," she tells him. The soldiers bushy eyebrows rise on his forehead.

"The Captain of the Vanguard? He's here in the city!" The man exclaims. A sense of urgency suddenly arises in Aloy.

"Where? I need to see him," she demands.

"Wait, if you want to see him, you have to—"

Aloy doesn't wait for the man to finish. She pushes past him and struts for the city gates. Now that she's confirmed that Erend was indeed close and alive, she wanted to see him as soon as possible and through her arms around him in relief, or kick him in the gut for making her worry so much. Maybe both.

The gates are already opened to allow the warriors to return to the city. She slips in with them into Mainspring and is bombarded with loud noises. A large crowd is gathered around them, regular old citizens who seem curious about the cause of the commotion outside their city barriers. A few of them cast an odd glance in her direction, but Aloy ignores them and instead navigates her way through them, looking for Erend. Her Focus can recognize his body thermal signature at this point and she pins it as a priority target.

Within a few minutes of walking, her Focus lights up. She keeps her eyes open as she lets her Focus guide her. Down the long street, outside of the large crowds of people, a few men in armour are gathered. Their metal differs from each other, but the stone grey steel of one of them is recognizable, and so is the short mohawk along his head, and the yellow and orange strips of his clothes…

"Erend!" she calls out. The man raises his head and, once she sees him, pushes past the other men around him.

"Aloy?" he asks unbelievingly. Aloy can't help but smile. Here he is, alive and in good health, and all the doubt she harboured ebbs away as she takes off in sprint and wraps him in a hug. Erend's hardly moved, but he chuckles and pats her on the back. There's not enough relief to make her cry, but a silly grin sports her face as well as a hard blush from such an affectionate display made in front of so many people and it almost makes her feel stupid.

Oh yeah, she was definitely going to kick him in the gut next.

* * *

HA! Take that Erend.

No I'm kidding, you're a good guy.


	14. Terror of the Skies Pt 2

**Terror of the Skies Pt. 2**

"You should have come to get me…"

"I'm sorry."

"You said one hour!"

"I forgot. I-I saw the machine's and—"

"You forgot?! How did you—"

"Vale! I'm sorry. I got carried away," Aloy finally cuts in. The other man shakes his head and turns away from the table. Erend sits there too, awkwardly stuck in empty silence and sipping on his drink. Aloy rises her hands to her forehead and sighs.

She really didn't get it. Vale was almost furious with her when he made it to Mainspring, escorted by some of the city's soldiers that Aloy had asked Erend to send for, almost three hours later. Their Silvermane companion walked along beside them, gathering all sorts of attention from the locals. Some of them were scared of it because of how the Derangement affected all machines. Others were curious and bewildered, and wondered what device Aloy had planted in the machine to make it obey. She let their curiosity go unsatisfied and now they stood in one of the many fort garrisons around the outer edges of the city.

As to why Vale was so infuriated, she couldn't name the exact reason. But this was obviously a sensitive issue for him, and it got her thinking. Had someone abandoned him before? She looks up and finds Erend giving her the same sort of questioning look, but she shakes her head; this isn't the time to ask about it.

"So what are you guys here for? Besides telling me to go back to Meridian?" Erend asks as casually as he can. She had gone over with Erend already with half their reasoning, which was also consequently why she didn't remember to go back for Vale. They had finally confirmed that Erend was alive, and Aloy wasn't going back to the Sundom without him. She had promised Avad that, and she hated to back down on that.

"The new machine born from the sky. Avad sent you and the Vanguard to kill it. Obviously that didn't happen, and since we're here…"

"Wait, _you_ want to hunt that machine? You're kidding, right?" Erend asks and turns to Vale. "Tell me she's kidding."

Vale grabs a chair and sits down at the table, arms crossed. "She's not, unfortunately."

Erend take a two while seconds to process this, and then starts laughing.

"What's so funny?" Aloy inquires, but Erend waves his hand dismissively.

"Of course you would come all the way here to conquer a new machine. What was I expecting?"

"Where is it, Erend? We need to put a stop to it."

The man's face suddenly turns serious when he looks at her. "You really want to go hunt those machines? Do you know how dangerous they are?"

Aloy nods. "Yes, which is why they have to be put down."

Erend looks like he can hardly believe what she is saying. "Okay, look, I know you're good at killing machines. Heck, you can even control them. But these machine that we attacked are something different. They outwitted us, Aloy. Machines have _never_ done that before. Everyone in the Vanguard was killed in minutes."

"I know what they did Erend, and I'm sorry. The Derangement is making them worse, but do you really expect me to just stand by and let these machines destroy everything?"

Erend sits back as Aloy stares at him, looking like he's contemplating how fast he can down the rest of his drink, which smells heavily of alcohol. Vale watches her carefully but he doesn't add to the conversation. Erend shakes his head.

"No, I guess not."

"Then tell me where they are," she demands.

"Wait! If you're going after them, then I'm coming too."

"Erend, you don't have to—"

"We need someone who know what we're dealing with," Vale finally says. "We haven't even seen these machines yet."

"Right, and if you're going to hunt for the Wyverns then you need some extra steel by your side," Erend adds.

"Wyverns?"

"It's what the Oseram started calling them. We call them that because they look like the murals on the statues over by the Wise Man's cathedral. Ah, basically a history museum about the Oseram. Some of those murals had an image of an ancient machine we called a Wyvern, and these machines look a lot like 'em," Erend explains.

"It might be worth checking them out," Vale says.

"Okay, but why do you want to come with us?" Aloy asks.

"Are you serious? I lost all the men under my command to those machines. If you think I'm gonna let you go by yourself to stand up to them, then you're crazy," the Oseram speaks, pitting his fist down on the table. "Besides, I need to finish this mission. Avad gave the job for me to do, and I'll be damned if I don't get it done before any other friends falls victim to those beasts."

Aloy looks Erend right in the eye. It's hard to believe that this was the same man who she had found drowning his sorrow in alcohol on her first visit to Meridian so long ago. Erend had smartened up, become a captain and taken on some tough jobs, including finding Dervahl and fighting the Eclipse. Now he wanted to fight machines alongside her. She had to admire his courage and personal growth.

"Alright. We'll go check out that mural. Wait for us at the gates and we'll meet you there," she agrees finally. Erend nods, stands up, and shoots down the rest of his drink in one swig.

"Great! I'll meet you there," he says once he puts the cup down. "And I'll have intel on their whereabouts when we meet up."

"Sounds good."

He turns and leaves the room a moment later. Aloy stands from her chair and gathers her things from the Silvermane sitting quietly in the corner of the room and makes to leave as well.

"Aloy…"

Vale is still sitting down when she looks at him, but he rises with his hands firmly planted on the table. His long hair is blocking most of his face, so she can't tell what he's thinking or feeling. But when he speaks, it's quiet and full of regret.

"I'm sorry I freaked out earlier." His head turns to face her. There's a softness in his eyes she hasn't seen before, and yet she doesn't believe that is hard for him to admit. He was like her in that regard; tough and straightforward but able to admit his own faults. Humble. So there must have been another reason why he was apologizing.

She returns to the table.

"I'm sorry I didn't come back for you. How you're feeling is justified, Vale. I usually don't let that happen," she tries to defend, but the man shakes his head.

"Still, I shouldn't have yelled."

Aloy studies his face as silence passes. He's uncomfortable. His eyes refuse to meet hers. She can tell that he's having trouble opening up about this, so she goes ahead and gives it to him.

"This has happened to you before…"

Vale almost looks shocked, but he gives her a sad smile and nods.

"Erend forgot to say you're pretty smart, too. Yeah. The last person who parted from me was killed, and it was someone I really cared about. I promised myself I won't let that happen ever again." He rises to his full height and fully faces her. "And it hasn't since. Don't make me break that promise."

Aloy nods slowly and there seems to be a light that returns to his cobalt blue eyes, until she realizes that it's just her shield weaver armour, still sparkling and now she feels silly so she looks away with a hazardous blush.

"We should go look at those murals," she says quickly and leaves before Vale can say anything else. She tries to quell the feeling but it burns away slowly.

 _Where did that come from?_

Mainspring is a lively place, and Aloy forgets that until she's back outside in the streets. People are out and about doing their daily business and it almost looks like there's a crowd outside of the city guard's garrison all the way down the street because of how many people there are. The bewildered and nervous looks they get when the Silvermane appears beside them serve as a good human deterrent as Aloy begins navigating the city's circular streets. The taller buildings that rise above the average stone huts in Mainspring seem to serve some other important services like a main hall, or the cathedral that they were supposed to look for.

She asks for directions to get there. The building is tall and supported by columns of stone all the way around the building, and the entrance is wide and open for people to enter and exit as they please. As Aloy, Vale and the Silvermane approach, a man stops them just before the entrance.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but the machine has to stay outside," he says hastily.

"Why? It won't hurt anyone. It's under my command," she replies, but the man shakes his head.

"There are no exceptions! With the Derangement getting worse, I can't allow any kind of machine to enter the temple, even one that's have been taken control over."

"I just said it's not… oh, nevermind." A lot turns to the machine and clicks her Focus to find the command orders, and then for appearance sake she says, " _Stay_ ," And they are allowed inside.

Inside the cathedral are several monuments up on display, a lantern of artificial light illuminating a pallet inscribed with details at each exhibit. Artifacts, machine parts and crests are shown in their brilliance and Aloy can't help but marvel at the wealth of pure history that the Oseram has to share here. She scans one of the inscribes to her Focus, saving the image for later so she can study it. One line she manages to read says something about the 'the great world-turning machine'.

She finds along the walls of the building are engraved figures and shapes of all kinds, and they go all the way around the inside walls. They all tell an impossibly intricate story that Aloy can't make sense of, but she finds a peculiar shape that catches her interest.

"Vale, look," she says and points to the image on the wall. It's a machine. A slithering long body makes up most of the image, and it has a pair of wings. Aloy runs her hand over the murals. She find waves of stone and figures out that they're supposed to represent flames. The machine is breathing fire at humans in this depiction.

"Is that the Wyvern?" Vale inquires. "Fire breath. Yup, that's it."

Aloy tries to remember the conversation they had with Derrick so long ago at the Sun Palace. He had described the machine to them, which basically sounded like a Snapmaw with wings. There was a long slithering body and fangs in the machine's jaws in the depiction on the wall that matched his description perfectly.

"Did you record our talk with the Vanguard in Meridian?" Aloy asks.

"Yes. Why?"

"What else did he say that we don't already know? I feel like we're missing something," she takes a step back and observes the mural as a whole. "It has wings, breathes fire and fire doesn't affect it."

Vale's Focus is lit up and she presumes he's listening to the recording. It take a few seconds for him to respond.

"It shoots bolts from its wings. Mounted cannons? That's about it," he finally says.

"Then why do I feel like we're going into this fight underprepared?" Aloy wonders aloud.

"Everyone says this machine is dangerous. It's probably going to take a lot of resources to kill it," Vale replies. "We should make sure that we have everything ready to go and then meet Erend at the gates. He's still waiting for us."

"Right."

They leave the cathedral and try to find the marketplace. They both agree that in a Oseram city like this, there would be all sorts of goods and weapons to choose from, and they have the shards to spare. Aloy finds an open store to walk into and there's a collection of weapons mounted on the wall.

There are no bows or slings. In fact, everything in the store is high-tech. There's a heavy rope caster and Rattler, as well as another large shoulder-mounted weapon with a large cannon on it that also looks heavy. Vale could probably use that.

There are several trinkets and gadgets as well that don't look like they do anything, except there's a button or a switch on most of them and Aloy isn't tempted to find out what any of them do.

There's only one weapon that looks out of place in the whole store, and it's mounted up on a pedestal behind the front counter. It's a single long stone grey blade with a handle at one end. The blade is straight and sleek and looks like it has never been used.

"Find something that catches your eye?" The merchants walks in and sees what Aloy is looking at. "Ah, you got an eye for the ancient stuff."

"Ancient?"

"Yes. That sword was modelled after a relic left behind by the Old Ones. The real one sits in a collectors casket, all rusted up and brittle. But this baby is smelted from brand new metal, and sharper than a Sawtooth's fangs! What do you think?"

It hardly seemed like a conventional weapon, and Aloy already has her spear, which was irreplaceable to her. She shakes her head.

"Maybe another time."

She leaves the store after buying some ammo for her blast sling and reunites with Vale. He's bought himself a set of wires that do nothing, but he explains that it might be what he needs to get his shield module working in tandem with his cannon, since he still could never figure it out. With their new gear they make their way to the same gates where Aloy first entered the city. Erend is waiting for them like he said he would, armed with his maul and a heavy metal bow.

"You all ready to go? The last sighting isn't far from here, just a few miles east. Last chance to change your mind," Erend says.

"I know, Erend. But we have to do this," Aloy says determinedly. "For everyone's sake."

"I know. That's why the Vanguard was sent out in the first place. Let's go finish the job."

The three of them and their machine mutt set out from the great city and head out east. With the rocky cliffs to their right and plains decorated with tree stumps to their left and blue skies above, it's an uneventful and peaceful walk for the first little bit. Aloy and Erend do some catching up, talking about about what they've each been doing since the battle at the Spire. Erend tells her that he's been leading the Oseram's efforts in cleaning up and rebuilding Meridian after the attack. And by leading he mostly just means running back and forth between telling people what to do and the Sun King's court. He hates having to listen to the nobles complain about every little thing like all the dust that's everywhere and the noise of people constantly working outside, but the hard labouring work has been rewarding. Aloy could remember seeing how the lower village looked from the main bridge, how the ruins of the buildings had been cleaned up and put into large piles. It must have been amazing watching the progress.

She in turn tells him how her she plays her role in the Nora tribe. It still annoys her how they worship her as a goddess-send and how the Matriarchs require her every counsel regarding decisions on how the tribe should handle problems, like how outsiders were being perceived and treated. After the attack by the Eclipse, they were particularly wary of travellers, even going so far as to set up more defensive perimeters around Mother's Crown, but Aloy shot that idea down as they needed to show how open and hospitable they could be, especially as Avad tried to send envoys to help them.

Once their talking dies down, Erend finds his way over to Vale, who has been walking in silence most of the trip.

"So how did you get caught up in this? Did she threaten you?" he asks jokingly, but Vale gives him an odd look.

"Erend," Aloy scolds lightly, but the man waves his hand dismissively.

"Actually, I sought her out," Vale answers. "I hoping she could help me end the Derangement."

"End the Derangement?" Erend repeats, surprised. "Hah! Now there's a goal worth achieving. Well you found the right girl to do it. If anyone can stop the machines, it's Aloy. She has this _way_ with machines."

"I've seen it. It's impressive."

"Okay, guys. I can _hear_ you," the girl exclaims sheepishly, her face burning and she tends to look away from the two men.

"How did you guys come across the Silvermane?" Erend asks. Vale responds.

"The ealderman of Ironwood asked us to clear out their mines of machines. Our other mounts were worn out before."

"Ah. Haverd's a good man. I hope he didn't ask you guys for the favour without anything in return."

"Our cloaks and traveling supplies came free," Vale replies.

"That hardly seems like a trade to me."

"Aloy felt inclined to help the miners since they couldn't fight."

"That's more like it."

As they fall into a comfortable silence, they come up on a large hill. A few old dead trees stand close to the road, but as they get closer Aloy realizes that they aren't just old dead trees; they're _burnt_ dead trees.

"What the hell did that?" Erend asks.

"Look at the ground," Vale points out. There's hardly any snow on the ground with the sun poking out of the clouds the last few days, which brings out the yellow dead grass underneath, but the grass surrounding the trees is black like it's been burnt and leaves dark soil exposed.

"Whoa…"

Aloy catches Vale looking into the distance and finds what he's looking at. On the other side of the hill, a large trench has been dug out in the ground and goes on for several, if not a hundred feet, and at the end is something large made of metal.

Vale's Focus lights up.

"There's a signal coming from over there," he says and points to the end of the trench. Aloy activates her Focus and finds the same thing. _Outgoing distress signal – level 2. 14% remaining power. Ongoing._

"How do you know that?" Erend inquires.

"I see it too. Let's check it out," Aloy agrees, passively ignoring Erend and leaves to inspect the object. The more she walks through the trench, the more she realizes it's not a natural formation. It's like something enormous smashed into the ground and created this crater with a lot of force. She looks back and tries to figure out the trajectory of this object, and it didn't make sense. That couldn't have been right…

"People were saying that this machine came from the sky. Is that true?" Aloy wonders.

"I'm not sure. Witnesses say they saw something fall from the sky in a big, blinding light, and then this machine showed up out of nowhere. I think people just assumed they were connected," Erend tells her.

Up close, the object looks like a massive bulk of machine armour. Aloy can identify all the individual plating and metal pieces and the wire underneath. Anyone could have been fooled into thinking this was a real machine, that's why they all approach it with their weapons drawn; Aloy with her spear, Erend his maul and Vale just his shield. But as Aloy tap her spear against the metal experimentally, nothing seemed to happen. She finds the beacon module where the signal is coming from. Nothing is attached to it.

"It's hollow. Look, there's a hole in the side," Vale points out. In the side of the dormant machine is a large hole. It doesn't look like something ripped through it, in fact Aloy can see pistons and levers on the insides of this machine. Something had been _let out_.

"This thing is just a shell," Aloy realizes. "Like something hatched from this."

"What do you think hatched from it?" Erend asks. All three of them jump and turn as an echo bounces in the air around them. A roar quite unlike anything Aloy has heard before emits from the air somewhere to the north, and it sends a chill down her spine as to how close it is.

"Probably that," Vale quips. Aloy is the first to move after they've all frozen in place. She creeps back up the crater wall and keeps her Focus active for anything suspicious. Both Vale and Erend are right on her tail on either side of her, both of them with their helmets on. Over in the distance, they can see the small light of a fire and some smoke.

"Are there any homes over there?" Aloy asks with concern.

"No, but it's possible that someone might have been attacked, a traveling caravan or something," Erend says and picks up his weapon. "We should go check it out."

"I agree," Vale responds. Aloy doesn't need the convincing and she starts heading that way, double checking her supply and ammo. All her arrows are assembled neatly in her quiver and her new bow is mounted on her back, her old one strapped to the Silvermane that carries the rest of hers and Vale's things. Her sling is on her belt too, and the pouch next to it is full of blast bombs.

When they come upon the sight ten minutes later, she's devastated to learn that they're too late. A cart full of supplies; weapons and metal parts, is tipped onto its side and spilt its contents all over the ground while the cart burns in a raging fire. An Oseram soldier is lying on the ground, dead, and another body lays next the cart, caught in the flames and too burnt to tell who exactly it is.

"We're too late," she grieves quietly, kneeling down next to the Oseram soldier. There are bite wounds on the body's shoulder, deep and… fresh. She tightens her grip on her spear.

"They must have been ambushed, same as us," Erend says lowly. He hovers just above her. Vale observes the cart, his hand waving in the air as he sifts through some unknown information on his Focus.

"These machines are capable of organizing an attack. Everyone we've talked to said the same thing," Aloy says. "I wonder what makes them do this."

"I kinda don't want to find out," Erend retorts.

"Guys…"

Both of them turn to Vale, who's quickly reaching for his weapon and his shield rises. Aloy gets up and stops, because a machine appears in front of them.

It emerges from behind the wreckage of the caravan, revealed by the flames that devour it. A machine as big as a Sawtooth comes out. It moves with the stealth of a Stalker and growls like a Thunderjaw, it's red eyes glaring at them. A pair of wings stand spry on its back like it's ready to take off, and it's long tail is thick and sways back and forth smoothly as it crawls towards them on four legs, each one armed with razor sharp claws. It's long neck has components lined up along its underside that each shine with a red-hot glow and from the hollow of its mouth is a faint red light.

This is the machine from the skies. This is the Wyvern.

A noise comes from their right and both Aloy and Erend move away from it as another machine enters, an exactly copy of the other one, wings ready and red headlights pointed in their direction, and Aloy realizes that this is the fear she was concerned about. There are two deadly machines, and they're both staring right at them.

* * *

Another new machine, and another one is about to make its appearance next chapter as well!

If anyone is interested, there are links to my drawings on my profile to sketches I've done. The most recent one is about a character I want to write for Fire Emblem, so go check it out!


	15. Terror of the Skies Pt 3

**Terror of the Skies Pt. 3**

* * *

Aloy makes the first move, giving an almost ear-piercing whistle into the air. Her overridden Silvermane machine barks and shakes off the bags strapped to it and runs towards them. The Wyvern to their left sneers and makes a jump for them and all three humans scramble to get out of the way. Aloy rolls to the side, grabs an arrow and aims at the machine.

But the other Wyvern makes its move. It charges headlong at her, but Vale stands in the way with his shield and blocks its charge. His shield takes the brunt of the tackle and it knocks him on his back. It gives Aloy the open she needs to aim her bow – already fully drawn – and fire at the machine in the eye. She realizes that the machine sports a familiar feature: a blue glass visor has covered its eyes to protect the lenses from damage. It would have been a different situation if Aloy had her regular old bow, but this new powerful bow should be able to do the trick.

The metal arrow shatters the left visor. The Wyvern growls and twists, swinging it's tail around. Both Aloy and Vale jump out of the way as the tail slams into the ground and kicks up dust. Her Silvermane enters attack mode, drawing its tail up to fire its laser. The beams knocks off a few armour pieces on the machine's side and the machine jumps back.

Erend is on his own with the other Wyvern, swinging his hammer wildly to keep the machine from making a move. A few times the hammerhead comes close to hitting the machine, but it flinches back every time before Erend can strike it.

Then the machine _moves_. It turns to its side and whacks Erend Down with one of its metal wings. Aloy catches a glimpse of the mounted turret on top before she watches her friend fall back onto a rock. The machine's jaws adjust as two metal fangs pop out and it dives in for the kill, but Erend raises his weapon to stop the machine. Aloy has time to draw her weapon again as the Wyvern rips the weapon from Erend's grasp and she lets her arrow fly, not really aiming, just hoping to distract it long enough for him to escape. The arrow sticks in between two metal plates on the machine's head and it bellows in rage, allowing Erend time to get away.

She switches to her blast sling. The Wyvern jumps for her, but she fires a bomb straight into its path and it collides with the machine's face. A few armour plates fall off, but not enough to do significant damage. The Wyvern jumps back and spreads its wings wide, and the propulsion jets on its wings activate. It launches into the air and flies away. Aloy and Erend grab their bows. Erend is able to get his arrows off before her, but his ice-tipped arrows miss as the machine weaves through the air.

Something slams into Aloy's back before she can fire one of her heavy arrows and she falls forward. Vale has been blasted by something, because there's a dark burn mark on his metal chest plate. The machine he was battling roars at them and dodges attacks from the Silvermane that fights with them.

But the Wyvern makes quick work of the Silvermane. It snatches the machine up with its front paw and rips it in two with it's jaws. The red components along its neck begin simmering as the machine _swallows_ the corpse of the Silvermane. It chews and bites the machine into small metal bits and once it fully consumes the dead machine, it growls with satisfaction and takes to the air along with the other one.

"Are you alright?" Aloy asks quickly. Clearly Vale isn't. He groans as he gets up to one knee.

"Still here," he grunts and leans on shield for support. "I don't think we're ready for this fight. These machines are too fast."

"No, we can't back down now!" she argues.

"But Aloy…"

"Let me think!"

The two Wyverns circle above, their roars echoing throughout the valley and ringing in their ears. Erend doesn't give up trying to hit them with arrows, but none of them hit their mark. The machines fly too fast and they change direction, making it impossible for him to lead his shots. The cannons on the machine's wings fire bullets and spray the ground with bolts. Erend finds cover behind the wreckage of the caravan, which is still burning in flames.

The machines have both speed and power on their side. They can't counter any of their strengths with their own because it isn't enough. If they had something like a Stormbird on their side they might have stood a chance, but Aloy hasn't seen one since coming into the Claim. Their environment isn't much help, especially with a flying enemy, and their three-on-two advantage doesn't prove to do anything either, if Erend's Vanguards' fate was anything to go by.

There was only one trick Aloy had up her sleeve.

She looks around frantically for her bag of extra gear. The Silvermane dropped it before running into battle and it sits out in the open.

"Cover me!" she shouts at Vale and runs for her bag. One of the Wyverns turns in the air towards them and starts firing its cannons. Plasma bolts spray the ground and Aloy is forced to stop and hide behind Vale, her shield weaver armour taking some hits as she scrambles. The Wyvern flies overhead and they sprint again, making it to their stash of gear. Aloy flips the bag and dumps everything out until she finds what she's looking her. Her ropecaster.

"I need to get close to one of them," Aloy says hastily. "Can you lure one in?"

"What's your plan?" he snipes, and goes still when Aloy raises the butt end of her spear. "Of course."

"We can't beat both of them in a straight fight. We need one of them fighting for us," she explains. "Ready?"

Vale nods and Aloy loads a rope bundle into the launcher. One of the Wyverns fly overhead. Vale aims his cannon and fires, hitting the machine's wings, the attack making it wobble in the air but not enough to ground it. The machine circles around and comes in with a sweep of its cannons. Vale slams his shield on the ground and the metal plates expand outward, giving them more cover. He grabs his maul and the head of the weapon splits. When the flying machine gets overhead, Vale fires an incredibly lucky shot that lands on the machines's other wing, paralyzing it. It's enough to make the Wyvern crash headlong into the ground and churn up dirt for several feet.

As the mercenary runs after it, Aloy checks in on Erend. He hides behind a rock, trading arrow shots with the other Wyvern machine which has also landed on the ground. The machine roars as its mouth hangs agape with a red-hot glow, and it spews fire and molten spit at him. Erend dives out of the way and grabs his own maul and catches Aloy watching with her weapon primed.

"I got this! You do what you gotta do!" he shouts. She hates the idea of leaving him on his own, especially after coming so far to find him. But she trusts that he can handle himself. He was too stubborn to die, after all.

She turns and catches up with Vale. The Wyvern pulls itself out of the rubble. A few metal pieces of armour are littered on the ground, fallen off from the impact. As the machine turns to face them, Vale sprints ahead and swings his hammer. The machine jumps back and twists and swings it's tail at him, but he blocks it with his shield, a painfully grunt escaping his voice. Aloy aims her weapon at the machine's wings and fires, the metal pin piercing one of its metal feathers. She quickly fires the other end at the ground as the machine squirms and tugs at the rope. She has to be quick if she wants get close.

The Wyvern makes that difficult. Aloy dives to the side as it breathes fire at her. The flames are hot and even though she isn't caught in them, she can feel the heat on her back. She gets a chance to fire again, securing the wing to the ground with another rope.

Vale tosses his lasso. His skill allows him to whip it around and snare the Wyvern's snout and jaws together. The machine struggles wildly under its restraints and kicks up dust. Aloy fires another rope at the machine's leg and ties it to the ground.

The Wyvern gives one vicious yank and forces Vale to stumble. It swings its head and smashes into his body, sending him flying across the ground. It then turns and lunges at Aloy, but she ducks as the machine flies over her. She rolls away and fires one more rope at the machine's other leg and latches it to the ground. The Wyvern lunges again, but the ropes stop it just a mere two feet in front of her, and it can't breathe fire at her because Vale's rope has wrapped its jaws shut.

Aloy grabs her spear and tries to anticipate the machine's moves, but it twists and turns too chaotically for her to sneak in with her override device. She takes a step forward and the Wyvern strikes, but she leaps off of a rock and lands with her body strewn across the machine's neck. Against the flailing, she manages to keep herself even as the machine breaks the ropes tethering it's wing to the ground. She sees Vale get up from the ground and swing his weapon in a wide arc, striking the machine in the head.

Consequently, it breaks his rope, and the electricity circulating through it snaps in an explosion of sparks. The Wyvern face sparks as wires snap, but it recovers quick and flaps one of its wings to knock Vale over. Aloy plunges her spear into the machine's back before it can attack him while its on the ground.

The Wyvern comes to a full stop. The override module starts working it's magic and Aloy can see the progress through her Focus, but suddenly the data stream turns red and her spear starts sparking with electricity where it contacts with the machine's core wires. The Wyvern shakes and squirms, like it knows what she's trying to do and tries to make her stop. It spreads its wings wide and she can hear a device wind up to full power behind her.

An extra set of propulsion jets appear from under the metal plating on the machine's rear, on either side of its tail. They power up, blue light circling in the engines, and the Wyvern _launches_ into the air with such a force that it Aloy feels like her arms would have ripped off if she hadn't braced herself properly. They shoot straight up into the air and the ground is suddenly very far away. Wind whips by her face, stinging her eyes to the point that tears fall. The clouds get closer, and then in the blink of an eye they're _in them_. The Wyvern flies sporadically, twisting and turning in the air, doing rolls and spirals, anything to shake her off, but she finds a way to sit back perfectly with her legs tucked under metal plating and her one hand holding onto the wires that run up the machine's spine. She's still hanging onto her spear which is still jammed in the machine's hide.

She quickly activates her Focus. Nothing in the machine's programs have blocked her attempts to override them before, so why was this machine different? She views the data her Corruptor tech is feeding her as the Wyvern tilts from side to side. One of the jets on its wings is smoking, leaving a thin black chemtrail behind it. The data shows her some kind of firewall program. She shifts through the data while fighting the force of the wind, looking for a way past the firewall. A passcode, a breach, anything. This kind of technology was right up her alley. She should know how to break down the barrier.

She finally finds the deactivation sequence. A synthetic voice speaks to her through her Focus.

" _Defensive Armaments Protocol initiated. To deactivate, state name and rank."_

Well that was an easy one.

"Elisabet Sobeck, Alpha Prime!" she shouts. The display turns green and instantly the machine's speed slows down into a casual glide. Blue wires grow themselves over the back of the Wyvern's neck, giving her something to hold on to. The blue visors over its eyes slide back and the cannons rotate backwards. The machine is under her control now.

Aloy heaves a relieving sigh and hooks her spear to her back. Her Focus lights up again. She finds that there are two small antennae on the back of the machine's head and her Focus is trying to connect to them. She finds link communications and her display explodes into a trove of data. Several signals are coming from the ground. A Tallneck was wondering around the plains below them; another signal came from on top of the mountains to the north, and another signal of some unknown nature came from a forest of dead trees to the west. She could see the city of Mainspring from here and finally grasp its enormous size. It was more spread out then Meridian, and the tallest buildings were close to the centre. The stone walls went all the way around it and the towers looked small in comparison to everything else.

Another signal caught her attention. Two markers were grouped together and Aloy finds that the signal was coming from the other Wyvern, labelled as _hostile machine_ , identified at a range that her could never have reached on its own. The markers were her allies, Vale and Erend. She grabs the wires like reins and pulls. The machine responds and turns around, sensing her urgency and speeds up back towards her friends.

The fire from the burning caravan is still lit, but her gaze tracks her allies' movements. Both Vale and Erend have been backed into a corner, the angry Wyvern keeping them pinned with its ranged attacks and large wings. Aloy spurs her new mount to fly faster, the blue light in the engines burning brighter.

Her Wyvern tackles the machine and they hurdle across the air. The other machine barely has any damage on it, aside from the one visor that Aloy shot out earlier. The men haven't had a chance to inflict any wounds on it. It gets itself upright and roars at them. The huntress readies her bow as her machine growls back and fires its wing cannons. The hostile machine jumps to the side with a flap of its wings and spins around, raking its tail across the Wyvern's face. It jumps back at close quarters and clamps it's jaws around her mounts' neck, but Aloy is able to jam her spear into the machine's snout, effectively unclamping its jaws from her machine. The hostile Wyvern turns towards the open air and bursts into a takeoff from the ground.

Aloy tugs on the wires and the the Wyvern launches after it, and soon they're speeding through the air, catching up with the other machine. Her Wyvern fires its cannons, but the other machine spirals out of the way and turns its head towards them to spew fire. They weave out of the way and Aloy manages to fire off one of her heavy arrows. It misses, but it discourages the machine from attacking and it speeds up to get away.

They continue to weave around each other, dodging and lunging with their attacks. Aloy finds her grip tested when her mount barrel rolls in the air a few times, but she manages to keep herself in place. It puts distance between them and allows her to draw an arrow back at full strength. When they cross each other's paths, she fires and lands her shot in the crevice between the machine's neck and front leg, and it falters and falls to the ground.

It smacks the rock cliffs before it collides with the ground, kicking up dust. Aloy turns her machine around and goes to the scene, where she find the other machine sparking all over. One of its wings is broken in half and a transfer hose containing a green liquid, blaze, spills from its chest, right at the wound where her arrow landed. She grabs her blast sling as the machine roars at them. It makes to fire its cannons again, but she beats it to the draw, lobbing one of her bombs at the blaze spilt on the ground. The liquid catches and explodes right in the machine's face. In a spectacular explosion, the machine is thrown head over tail and lands on its back, the light in its eyes finally going out.

Her Wyvern screams into the air and spreads its wings wide, as if in celebration of its victory. It's a reaction Aloy hasn't seen in any other machine before, but it further proves that these machines are of a different breed, built with a different kind of complexity that separates them from the other machines affected by the Derangement. Aloy dismounts herself from the machine's back as it settles down, eyeing her carefully. She sees her human allies appear over the hill, looking no worse for the wear. Erend's left shoulder pad is burnt to a crisp and his helmet is missing, and Vale is holding his side, but otherwise they are both alive.

"How does she do it?" Erend mutters, looking down at her and her new machine friend.

"I really don't know sometimes," Vale mumbles back. Aloy smirks in amusement and waves her hand.

"You can come down. It's safe!" she calls out. Both men make their way down to her and cautiously regard the tamed Wyvern, while it stares back at them nonchalantly like nothing ever happened. "Are you okay?" she asks Vale.

"I'll live once I get a chance to patch it up," he grunts. There's blood seeping through his fingers where he holds his wound and Aloy can't help but feel some sort of guilt. It was her decision to hijack the machine and leave them to fend for themselves against the other machine. "Don't look at me like that," Vale says, interrupting her thoughts. "We could've been a lot worse off if you couldn't tame that machine."

She nods and rubs her neck. She's unable to look him in the eye for some reason. "At least let me patch that up for you."

"Hey guys…" Erend speaks up, spurring both of their attention. The Oseram warrior points to something on the dead machine. "Something's blinking there."

Aloy walks up to dead Wyvern. Sparks still jump from its body, but there's a red blinking light coming from its head. She pushes the machine's head over and finds a new part has sprung from its head. A red light is flashing on and off and a signal emits from it. Aloy's scans the signal with her Focus.

 _Outgoing distress signal – level 5. 95% remaining power. Ongoing._

"Level five, that's different than the signal from before. What could it mean?" Aloy rambles on. Her Wyvern growls lowly and back away from the dead machine, almost as it if was… afraid? "Level five. That's probably more important than level two."

"What does that mean?" Erend asks.

"This component is sending a signal out there, but I don't know what to," she replies.

"Is that a bad thing?"

"I'm not sure…"

"It might be," Vale says. Aloy finds that his gaze is up at the sky, which is now turning yellow as the sun touches the horizon. She rises to her feet as he points at something in between the clouds.

A bright shining light is moving through the sky. It arcs across the sky, not directly towards them, but Aloy can tell that it's getting closer. It gets bigger and it gets brighter the closer to the ground it gets, and these's a boom in the air as the object brightens even more, leaving a large smoke trail behind it. With a thunderous wave it flies over their heads, a massive round object on fire that careens towards the north and disappears behind a hill. A few seconds later, a loud explosion shakes the earth. The huntress can feel the ground quake beneath her.

"What the hell was that?!" Erend exclaims. "You both saw that, right? It just… it just fell from the sky!"

Aloy doesn't respond as she tries to piece together what just happened. She gives a look to Vale, who has the same stunned look on his face.

"A machine born from the skies…" she murmurs to herself. It suddenly makes sense, and she grasps her bow tighter. "Those rumours might be true after all. We need to go!"

"You want to go see what that thing is?" Erend asks incredulously.

"If it's another Wyvern, we need to put it down," Vale says, but he looks uncertain. "I don't know if I can put up with another fight, though."

The Wyvern sits put, its wings tucked in and it stares at her intently. There's something about this machine that's definitely different. Whether it can sense her determination or it's simply following its programming, she knows that this machine will follow her into battle.

"We have to go see what it is," she finally says. "Vale, jump on that machine. Erend and I can walk."

Her commands go unquestioned. Vale climbs onto the back of the Wyvern unsteadily as Aloy and Erend begin climbing the hill. The machine runs after them, not risking a flight with an injured human in its back. At the top of the hill, Aloy can see the sight of the impact not far away. Like the object they found earlier, a long, large crater has cut through the earth, and at the end is the fallen machinery. Metal still burns bright red and patches of fire surround it. Another signal comes from the object: _Distress beacon located. Awaiting query response from GPrime_.

 _That can't be good_ , Aloy thinks to herself. If this is another hostile AI situation, the machine might act on its own conclusions when it doesn't get an answer back from the Gaia Prime site. The site was in ruins, leaving no way for it to communicate with Zero Dawn or any of its branching functions. They had to act fast.

As they get closer, Aloy realizes that this machine is _much_ bigger than the other one, and three times the size of the Wyvern. The protective metal shell encasing the machine is still hot, even standing close to it.

"I got a bad feeling about this," Erend announces. Aloy tries to get close to the machine. A particular module on the shell is blinking, lights flashing red and green. A lens pops out suddenly and flashes bright green. A green light washes over all of them quickly, like the scanning light at the entrance of the Cradle facility. Metal plates move outwards from the shell and pop off, falling to the ground and revealing two pairs of blue lights that quickly turn from yellow to red.

"Get back!" she shouts as she runs away. The whole shells starts moving all at once, revealing a big machine as it hatches from it's metal cove. Metal pieces shift to form wings and legs as other pieces shed from its body completely, falling to the ground. Wires grow out from the body as components find their place. Along the underside of the machine's long neck are parts that glow white-hot as they activate and two jets on each wing boot up and blast out exhaust. Sharp claws line the individual fingers of the machine's feet and a long tail swishes wildly as sparkers form a line along its spine. A second, smaller pair of wings form just in front of the machine's hind legs, and metal plating shifts into place to form a protective mask over its long snout and jaws. The machine comes to stand on two legs at its full height and stretches out its four wings. It's roar is unlike anything Aloy has endured before. The sound pierces her ears like a hot knife plunging into her ear canals, and she can't help but scream in pain.

"That thing is huge!" Erend shouts, but Aloy barely hears it. In its full glory, the mighty machine is impressive, more intimidating than a Thunderjaw, which she didn't think was possible. It's steps shake the ground like a Deathbringer's march and the intense red glow from its' eyes are more malicious than a Sawtooth's.

To make the situation even more dire, several small lights appear all over the machines' body, and a white transparent light begins enveloping it. Aloy realizes with horror that it's a magnetic shield, just like her shield weaver armour.

They were definitely in trouble.

* * *

An even bigger Wyvern enters the fight! Now it's for the surprise part 4 next week.


	16. Terror of the Skies Pt 4

**Terror of the Skies Pt. 4**

* * *

"Move, move, move!"

"Get out of the way!"

"Go! Jump!"

An explosion goes off and rocks Aloy off her feet over the edge of the cliff. Luckily it's a small drop and she lands on her feet. Erend isn't so lucky. He lands on his face, sprawled across the ground. She helps him up to his feet and they press themselves up against the cliff wall. His face is bloody from his nose, but whether he got it from the fall or sometime earlier she can't remember.

A second later, another blast goes off and Vale flies down the cliff. He lands on his shield, but the way he bounces off the ground like a rag doll urges Aloy to run to him. The man groans and when she reaches out to help him, he hisses. His wound hasn't gotten any attention and is getting worse, the blood spreading down his leg now and splattering the armour on his thigh. Despite his protesting, she manages to pick him up and drags him over to the wall where they hide.

"This is getting really bad," Erend gasps, wiping the blood off his lips. "We need a plan."

"I'm working on it!" Aloy snaps, checking over Vale for any more injuries. He's bleeding from the head somewhere and has a nasty scratch on his bare arm. He doesn't look good.

"I don't know how much longer we can keep this up," Vale breathes out through clenched teeth.

"Erend, patch up his wounds. I'm going to distract it," Aloy orders.

"That's not a plan; that's suicide!" Erend cries.

"I don't care. Shut up and just do it!"

Vale grabs Aloy's arm. "No, he's right. You're not going to last long against that machine by yourself. We need to regroup and come up with a strategy."

Just then, a shadow passes over them. The overridden Wyvern's body falls onto the ground in front of them, a mess of sparks and broken parts, but somehow still alive, but it lays low. Aloy looks up and freezes as the head of the bigger machine, a King Wyvern as Erend called it moments earlier, pokes over the cliff and scans the area, regarding the broken Wyvern with little interest now. It never spots them and turns away, it's tail swishing behind it.

"We don't want to end up like that," Vale whispers and points to the machine. The poor Wyvern drags its head around to look at them, eyes gazing up at Aloy pleadingly. The machine had fought bravely, inflicting more damage on the King Wyvern than any of them combined, but even so, with its shield module, they had hardly done any damage at all. The bigger machine was faster, stronger and more resilient than any machine she had faced so far. She was certain that with its ability to fly, it would have taken down a Deathbringer or two and eaten a Stormbird for a snack in between.

Aloy pulls her thoughts together and thinks frantically. They were all worn to the point of collapsing. She had been lucky. Her shield weaver armour had protected her from most damage, but she was sore and bruised all over. The Wyvern lost its ability to fly: Vale could barely stand and Erend was exhausted. If they ran, the King Wyvern would spot them and come flying over to end them for good. There was no easy way out of this.

Aloy took a good long look at the injured machine in front of them. If they could repair its wings, they might stand a chance. There were thoughts forming in her head. They needed to deplete that shield to do any real damage, and maybe she could pull another override trick.

 _Wait_.

"Vale, remember when we first met, at the Nora gates?" Aloy asks. Vale gives her an odd look.

"Yes, I do. What that got to do with this?"

"That device you took from the machine that tried to kill me. Where is it?"

The man reaches for the metal case strapped to his belt and opens it. The device is smaller than her palm, in perfectly pristine condition. Two wires protrude out from the side of it, cut neatly.

"I've looked at it a few times, but I can't make it work with my gear," Vale explains. Aloy thinks back to the battle, both at the gates and the one in the Cauldron where they fought another one, how the machine could repair itself on command.

"Maybe because it's only works for machines," she says and points to the Wyvern. "Come here. Come!"

The machine whimpers and starts crawling towards them, pulling itself with one arm. Aloy waits until the machine is right in front of her and reaches out to its neck. Along its side are several cut wires, gashes from the battle with the other Wyvern that they killed together. She starts stringing wires together and creates a knot where the device mounts securely in place.

"I need a flame. Hold this," Aloy commands, grabbing one of her fire arrows. Erend hold it up for her and she pinches the two wires together that are connected to the device. She holds the flames underneath it until the thin metal coating starts melting and solders the wires together. A small green lights comes on on the device. "Yes, that's it!"

The Wyvern twitches. It's eyes flicker and a digital display hovers over its eyes, scrolling through a few lines of code before they disappear and the machine shakes its body back and forth. The machine's body starts sparking then, but not in the same way that frayed wires do. Light arcs across its wings and neck and suddenly it is enveloped in light, bright enough that Aloy and the others have to look away.

When the light fades, Aloy glances at a new machine. Black metal armour now covers parts of its body. The jets on its wings look completely new and the gashes on its neck are mended. Newer, sharper looking armour cover its legs, tail and head and a new pair of purple visors slide into place over the Wyvern's eyes. The machine growls with renewed strength and spreads its wings wide.

"How… how did you do that?" Erend gasps, totally stunned by the magic she just displayed. Aloy can't help but grin.

"That was… new," Vale mutters, still gasping for breath as he leans against the rock. "Who knew it could work like that."

"Okay, I have a new idea. Vale, give Erend your shield," Aloy orders. Vale holds out his shield in offering and Erend takes it slowly.

"She's my most valuable possession," Vale reminds him. Erend nods.

"Now get on the Wyvern," Aloy says next. Vale gives her a surprised look.

"What am I supposed to do from there?"

"You can hardly move. The Wyvern can give you that mobility," she tells him. "Your Focus can connect to the machine. You'll be able to understand it better when you do."

"Wait, he's wearing one of things too?" Erend cuts in, but Aloy raises her hand.

"Not now! Once you get in the air, distract the other machine for awhile. We need to figure out how to get past that shield."

Vale takes a good long look at her before he nods, and groans as he stands up. He finds his way to the Wyvern on his own and climbs onto its back like he had before and secures himself in place. The machine growls and it's jets whirl to life, kicking up dust as it prepares to launch. It's takeoff seems much more abrupt and faster then before, and even cracks the ground where it once stood. They're a blur in the distance and disappear a mere moment later.

"Wow," Erend says. "Okay, that's kind of scary and amazing at the same time."

"Now it's our turn. Get ready, we'll need to time our attacks," Aloy says and picks up her bow. She's down to just three metal arrows and a few fire arrows, but hopefully that's all she needs.

"So what do I do with this thing?" Erend asks, lifting the shield.

"There's a Stalker cannon mounted to it. The trigger is on the handle, and there's about a two second delay on it. Do as I say and wait for my signal to fire at the machine."

Erend looks unsure, but he shrugs. "Okay. You haven't led me to my death yet. Let's go!"

They circle around and find a way back up to the top of the cliff. The hill further away slopes up back to higher ground and the pair make their way to the top. Above them, they can see Vale and the Wyvern in an aerial battle with the King Wyvern. The Wyvern fires a purple laser focused from its lenses, some new mechanic it must have earned when it repaired itself with the new tech. The bigger machine dives to avoid it and fires the cannons on its wings. Vale and the Wyvern spiral away and dart across the sky and are chased into the dark clouds, disappearing from view. Purple and blue lights flash and flicker in the clouds as Aloy assembles her arrows onto her bowstring. The metal arrows fit neatly into the circular sights, but she's worried the tails will shatter it upon firing.

Vale and the Wyvern fall from the sky above. One of the machine's wings is smoking, but they fly through the air unhampered. The bigger machine comes in after them from above, closing the distance fast.

"Get ready, Erend," Aloy says, aiming her bow as Vale and the Wyvern fly towards them. The King Wyvern roars and pursues. Erend raises the shield, the cannon primed. They fly over their heads, just a few feet above them. The red headlights of the angry machine is pointed right at them, but Aloy doesn't flinch.

"Aloy?" Erend drags out. The machine is approaching fast.

"Pull the trigger!" she commands. The charge sets to fire and Aloy waits one second before releasing her arrows. Her concerns are realizes when her sights break, but the arrows fly true. The cannon shot fires and all missiles hit the machine at the same time, light dissipating from its body as its shield breaks. Aloy quickly draws two fire arrows and lets them loose above them, leading her shot into the machine's path. The arrows hit the machine in the face and fire spreads. It loses control and descends to the ground, skidding across dirt and earth as metal plates break off from the impact.

Aloy and Erend run to the scene. Vale and the Wyvern are already there, attacking the machine while's it's still down. The King Wyvern levels itself to all four legs and lunges at them. They jump away, but the bigger machine swings it's tail and slams it against the smaller machine's body, knocking Vale off the machine. Vale gets to his feet, his hammer still in his hands. He fires the paralyzing darts in quick succession and shocks one of its wings into paralysis. The wing goes limp, but it doesn't stop the machine from striking with its tail again, sending Vale and dirt flying across the air.

Aloy shoots more fire arrows to distract the machine, doing whatever she can from stopping its shield from recharging. The flames hit the machine's other wing, right where one of its jet engines are located and catches the component aflame, but the King Wyvern doesn't seem concerned about it. The components along its neck start to shine with that white-hot glow and it opens its jaws to let loose and breath attack.

Except it's not just a flame attack. A white energy beam shoots from the machine's mouth and blasts the ground. Aloy and Erend dive out of the way as the beam moves towards them and cuts the earth in a fine line, burning the ground until it turns to glass and fires wildly into the air, slicing the clouds in half.

Aloy tries not to pay attention to the amazing power of the machine and fires more arrows. They find their places in between metal plates, wires and in components, all the while the Wyvern keeps the machine busy with its ranged attacks, keeping its distance. Erend starts firing his ice arrows at the machine's chest, cooling down and freezing those hot energy components. The King Wyvern swats and squirms, trying to hit any of them, but the damage is slowing it down. They're getting the upper hand.

Or so Aloy thinks until electricity starts enveloping the machine's body. For a second she thinks that the machine is about to start repairing itself, like the new robots that Hephaestus had made and she quickly draws another arrow. But then an invisible force pushes her away as a blast emanates from the machine's body outward, forcing everything back. Aloy's body goes numb and she can hear her shield blinking with depleted energy levels in her ear.

She picks herself up off the ground and looks around. She's the only one standing. Erend and Vale are on the ground, neither of them moving. Even the Wyvern is down, the light in its eyes completely out. It's not dead, but its systems are shut down in every way. She notices her shield won't recharge and when she tries to activate her Focus, it won't turn on. Every electrical device is deactivated.

She realizes that her shield had saved her from whatever concussive wave had hit them. The King Wyvern still stands, now glaring at her. A few sparks still fly from its body, but it's still very much mobile. All Aloy has left is her spear and bow.

Those components on the machine's neck are still frozen from Erend's arrows. She reaches for her arrows but realizes with horror that she has no more. The King Wyvern charges towards her and she grabs her spear, steadies it next to her head and throws it with all of her strength. Aloy has rarely thrown her spear, but her aim is perfect still. It impales one of the frozen components and shatters it, making the great machine flinch. She runs up to the machine and dislodges her spear and strikes again, tearing apart wires. The machine roars and swipes at her with its claws, but Aloy ducks and rolls.

She swings the sharp end of her spear and breaks another frozen component and the machine staggers to the side. A fire starts building at the wound and sparks spray everywhere. The machine roars at her and backs away.

But a purple beams strikes the King Wyvern in the face. Aloy finds the Wyvern is alive, but not complete active. It only able to move its head and one arm. Its systems are slowly coming back online and its able to fire its laser in attack. Aloy realizes that her shield weaver is powering back up as well. Whatever caused the malfunction, is was temporary.

Aloy sees her chance and runs towards the big machine. She jumps to the side as the machine maneuvers, turning to face the smaller machine, still defenceless. But when Aloy climbs onto the machine's back, the King Wyvern wriggles and squirms in panic. She grabs hold of wires and taps her Focus, but it still won't activate. She can only hope that her Corruptor tech is working. She turns her spear around and strikes the spine of the machine, jamming it deep below plating and connecting with wires.

The tech does nothing. It doesn't light up. The machine shakes its body violently and Aloy struggles to stay on, bucked back and forth, side to side until she finally loses her grip and is tossed off, landing on her side. She rolls away and puts distance between herself and the machine, her spear still lodged in its back.

The Wyvern finally regains full control of its body, flapping its wings and rushes to protect her. It jumps in front of her and fires its laser to stop the bigger machine from reaching her. The King Wyvern backs away, but turns and swings it's tail, swatting away the Wyvern like a fly. It turns back towards Aloy. The visor over its eyes slide away and the metal plating protecting its jaws and snout roll back. It gives her its most powerful roar it can muster and lunges at her, claws and fang bared. Aloy doesn't have a weapon to defend herself with, so she turns away and closes her eyes and awaits her fate.

It never comes. All noise ceases as the machine comes to a complete stop, freezing in place for a few seconds as its eyes change to a light blue shade. Aloy looks up and the machine relaxes, lowering its claws and dipping its head at her, like its ashamed.

Her Focus sparks, tingling her ear and finally comes back online. The familiar synthetic voice that comes with all Focus devices speaks to her.

" _Welcome to your new Faro Focus virtual reality software, where the future is made real today. Please select any of the following presets to begin using your new device."_

The Focus reboots and Aloy resets her Focus to her original settings before she comes to a stand. She scans the massive machine before her; it's marked as a friendly machine. The override device has come back online and worked its magic, saving her life.

They're struggle was over.

… … …

The wind whips by in a howl that is hard to ignore once his regains his senses, and Vale is almost afraid to open his eyes to see what the cause of such racket is. Did he die? Was his soul flying through the cosmos to some divine afterlife?

Nope. With a jolt, Vale realizes he is still very much alive and that he was very much in pain. His left side burned and his entire body ached, and when he did finally open his eyes he finds that they were _very_ high off the ground. He tries to back away from the edge, but something holds his legs into place and he finds that the other direction is also a sheer drop to open air. Someone grabs his collar and steadies him.

"Easy there! You don't want to fall off now!" It's Erend, the Oseram captain. He's sitting behind him, his face a little grimy but free of the blood from his nosebleed earlier.

"What?" is all Vale can say, until he gets a grip on his bearings and realizes where they are.

They're riding on the back of the King Wyvern, flying at an incredible speed across the sky. That explains the wind; they're moving faster than he thought was possible. The wind whips his hair back and screams in his ears and he almost has to close his eyes shut because it stings his eyes to look directly into the wind.

The machine's jets are blasting at full capacity, leaving a thin trail behind them as they race across the dusk. Vale finds the other Wyvern is flying right beside them, fully repaired and weaving through the air with perfect form. He looks ahead and finds Aloy, sitting further ahead, tucked right behind the machine's head, straddled on its neck.

"What happened?" he asks. He almost has to shout because he can barely hear himself in the wind.

"What do you think? Well, Aloy took this machine all on her own after it knocked our lights out. When I came too, we patched all our wounds and now we're headed for Meridian!" the Oseram explains. Vale takes a closer look at the machine. The King Wyvern is fully repaired as well. All the wounds they managed to inflict on it were undone. He pats his wound and finds that it's been bandaged up as well.

"She gained control of the machine," he says.

"Of course she did. It's her signature move, after all!" Erend cheers excitedly. Despite the pain, he can't help but smile.

"Yeah, seems like it."

He taps his Focus and finds what he's missed, surprised when a voice speaks in his head that he's never heard before, and all his custom settings have been erased. Annoyed, he begins searching through his control scheme and begins to piece together his heads-up display. They're headed south, and it's sometime close to the end of the day's cycle, which is evident with the moon as high up in the sky as it is. He's got three new messages and two new pending data links, which he suspects are the two overridden machines they are flying on.

He starts going through the files of the King Wyvern and finds a wealth of new information he's never seen before: metamaterial alloy with special carbon coating – perfect for resisting fire; hyper drive propulsion jets – that was a step up from the regular hovering jets that made the Stormbirds and Glinthawks fly; plasma smelting hubs – the components along its neck that burned with that intense glow. Were they supposed to melt whatever the machine ate? Vale searches deeper, going into files he hadn't explored before. He finds an archive of active duties and external communications, like the data Aloy had found when he watched her override that Tallneck when they first entered the Claim.

 _3012/5/26-11:31:47. Space debris filtering inactive for 134 days/mass untraceable._

 _3012/5/26-11:32:24. Sonar scanning initiated…_

 _3012/5/26-11:47:54. No detection/250 mile radius retrieves no signal._

 _3012/5/26-11:48:02. Space debris within quadrants consumed. Awaiting query…_

 _3012/5/26-11:58:04. No response, Gprime. Entering hibernation._

 _3039/6/17-19:14:37. Distress signal received – level 2. Monitoring._

 _3039/6/17-20:21:43. Distress signal received – level 5. Initiating system reboot… planetary re-entry imminent._

What the hell did any of this mean? Space debris, what was that? Was this machine supposed to gobble it up? And if it was, it looked like it had completely this function long ago, judging by the time lapse between hibernation and the next log. The distress signal was interesting. It was the same signal that came from that weird metal shell, and the same signal the dead Wyvern had when they killed it. This machine responded to its fallen metal brethren. Vale had never seen anything like that happen before. But then again, the Derangement was doing all sorts of things to the machines.

He didn't think that was the case, however. The time stamps of its last activity was years before the Derangement started. If this machine had acted with malicious intent, it was caused by something else.

"How long have we been flying?" he shouts back at Erend.

"A little over an hour, I think? Maybe more. I can't tell. But I recognized the mountain range we passed a few minutes back. We just flew over Pitchcliff."

 _Pitchcliff?!_

Vale peered over the side again and concluded that they were indeed back in the Sundom. He could make out the shapes of the red canyons in the moonlight ahead and even further still, the greenery of the southern jungle. A marker sits on top of the Spire through his display, it's signal reading loud and clear, which was odd since it disappeared as soon as they crossed the mountains into Oseram territory. They were moving _fast_. In a matter of minutes they would arrive in Meridian.

Vale realizes just how tired he is, and it's not just because of the aches or the pain. They haven't stopped to rest since he and Aloy woke up that morning to search for Erend, which seems like ages ago now. He couldn't wait to crash into a nice, soft bed tonight.

Aloy steers the flying machine towards the ground as they get close to the city. Vale can see a few lights still flickering in the streets of Meridian. He wonders what the night guards must be thinking if they spotted them approach. They slow down and come in on a vertical landing in a clearing just in front of the main entrance to the city. All the merchants stalls are closed and no one else is around. The other machine lands next to them, spry and oddly energetic. The King Wyvern lowers its body to allow the humans to get off with ease, but Vale groans as he tries to move, his wound aching and stunning him.

"We'll take you to one of the healers in the palace. They'll change that bandage out," Erend tells him, helping him down from the machine.

"Thank you."

"You're awake!" Aloy exclaims, appearing at his side. "How do you feel?"

"Like I just got my ass handed to me…" he grunts, and the girl smirks in amusement.

"Well, you kind of look like it."

"I think I'm ready to fall over…"

"Well hang on! Don't do that just yet," Erend says. He makes sure Vale can stand on his own before taking a step back. "I'll go ahead to the palace and make some arrangements. I'm sure everyone will be happy to see you two."

"They'll be happy to see _you_ , Erend. They need you," Aloy corrects. Erend raises his hands.

"There'll be time for celebration later. I'll see you two there!" He then turns and makes his way towards the city, leaving him and Aloy alone. They both turn towards the mighty machines they have conquered, both staring down at them intently.

"They're amazing machines," Aloy says. "I don't want to leave them."

"After they both almost killed us? You forgive kind of easily," Vale replies.

"It's the Derangement. It's affecting all of them," she reminds him. "But they're power can be used for good. If we work together we can change the world for the better."

"Too bad Hephaestus doesn't think so."

Aloy doesn't have a response to that. Instead she turns towards the Spire and activates her Focus.

"We'll go to the Spire tomorrow and retrieve the Master Override. After that, we'll visit a friend of mine up in Banuk lands. Hephaestus captured her once but she broke free. She might be able to help us understand what he's doing exactly."

Vale nods and stretches out his legs. He groans, which prompts the Nora warrior to turn around and looks up at him with those hazel eyes of hers, the moonlight making them shine. That, combined with the glittering white light that envelopes her armour, makes her a truly magnificent wander to behold.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asks worryingly. Vale nods and drops his gaze to the ground.

"I'll be fine. I might need to rest a bit before we move again," he says. "I'd really like to see that healer right about now."

The woman steps closer to him until she's almost up against his side. "Lean on me," she offers.

"W-what?"

"I said lean on me. There's no need to put any more pressure on that wound," Aloy explains. She pulls her arm around his back and waits for him. Vale suddenly feels uncomfortable, and it's not because her armour is slightly rubbing against his wound, and it's _definitely_ not because he wants to hang on to his pride by not excepting her help. He would hang up his pride on a tree branch if he could.

But Vale swallows his nerves and gently drapes his arm around her shoulders for support. She squeezes him a little tighter and they begin a slow walk towards the city. Behind them, the winged machines turn and take to the skies, circling above them a few times before disappearing into the night sky.

"Where are they going?" he asks, watching the trail of their jets fade away.

"I'm not sure, but I figured out how to link my Focus to their systems and keep a tethering link. I can call on them if we're ever in trouble," she explains. Vale laughs, which compels her to stop. "What's so funny?"

"You are!" he admits. "I've fought all kinds of machines and managed to break every single one of them, but you come along and make them obey you with the snap of your fingers and barely bat an eye doing it. You know, the more I watch you work the more I believe those stories that everyone tells me about you. If anyone can stop Hephaestus, it's you."

Aloy leans back from him and suddenly turns away. She plays with her hair nervously and Vale knows that he's gotten her flustered.

"Well you shouldn't believe all the stories you hear. Some of them are pretty wild," she replies nervously. He chuckles.

"I would be lying if I said I wouldn't want to see you calm a machine by singing it a lullaby."

She huffs. "In your dreams!"

Vale laughs again and they continue across the bridge in silence the rest of the way.

Truly, this woman was amazing in almost every way possible. Every day since they had first met, Aloy had surprised him with her ingenuity and skill and mastery with the machines. It was like she was born to know these things, which seemed silly when Vale thought about it, but he couldn't help but be amazed by her. She knew things that nobody else did. She understood how the world worked, and even when he thought he almost had her figured out, Aloy proved to have more characteristics to her that never showed themselves. Like now, when she offered to help him across the bridge towards the palace. He didn't understand how someone could display such grace and compassion and yet fight with such ferocity and determination.

She kind of reminded we him of Tavia, and that's when his mood shifts. He's quiet for the rest of the night.

* * *

Hoho, what's this? A perspective change! Expect to a lot more of it. And aren't the new machines awesome? What do you think they were made for? (If you take a close look at the logs, you'll probably figure it out)


	17. Side-Hunter's Bane

**Side-Hunter's Bane**

-Aloy is asked to kill a new machine migrating into the western jungles of the Jewel…

* * *

Waking up late in the morning the next day is probably Aloy's greatest sin she's ever committed. Sleep that night was a glorious feeling, and when she gets out of bed, her muscles are stiff and sore from the action yesterday. Fortunately all she has to do is perform a couple of good, long stretches to gain back her flexibility. And _boy_ does that ever feel good. She retains her Nora attire and folds up her shield weaver armour neatly into her bag before she attempts to find something to eat.

Olin's old apartment is empty. Marad had his belongings moved out and sold off to other wealthy people in city, while the space remained vacant. She wasn't sure why it wasn't bought by someone, or used as a shelter for those who lost their homes in the attack on the Spire instead. They could have had a place to sleep, protection from the cold and the rain if they had set it up as another infirmary. But nope, they had to keep it closed and reserved for the odd case that she might return to the city. She would have stayed out in the wilderness instead, but she needed to stay close and check up on Vale first thing, so accepting the offer was a begrudgingly blissful choice.

Walking through the streets and markets is different for Aloy than when she had waltzed through before the attack. There's a significantly less number of citizens and soldiers around, since most of them are down in the lower village still working on reconstruction. She hadn't taken a good look at how far the rebuilding had come along yet, so maybe while she was here she would go take a look.

On her way there, however, she passes by the Hunter's Lodge. A group of Carja hunters are standing around the entrance to the lodge talking amongst themselves. Aloy had never paid attention to it earlier, but she knew that Talanah was out with a hunting party when she was last in Meridian. Maybe they had returned.

Aloy pushes through the crowd until she makes it to the front door. Some of the hunters give her weird looks are dirty glares, but she doesn't give them a second thought. Most of them were still part of the old regime of a Carja male-dominant society and were rude, opinionated people anyway.

Ligan is standing there attending the door as he usually is. When he spots her, he dips his head in acknowledgement.

"Aloy, it's a pleasure to see you again," he greets.

"Hello, Ligan. Is Talanah around?" she asks.

"Yes she is. Her hunting party just returned from a foiled hunt. I think she might want to talk to you," he hints and points up to the second floor balcony, where she assumes the other huntress is. She thanks him and walks up the steps to the top. Talanah isn't anywhere near the stairs nor out on the balcony that stretches outside, but instead at one of the far corners of the lodge, sectioned off by standing curtains. She sitting on a lavishing couch by herself and surrounded by lamps, pillows, silks, all the illustrious décor that made it look like she lived as a noble. But Talanah herself looks _horrible_.

Not sickly, but damaged.

Injured.

When Aloy realizes this, she rushes to the Sunhawk's side. Talanah's taken off her gauntlets and her hawk helm, and her hair isn't pinned up in her usual style, but the rest of her battered Carja armour is still there, which is how Aloy was able to recognize her.

"Talanah? What happened?" she inquires as she sits down on the couch next to her. Talanah looks up, surprised, obviously not expecting her.

"Aloy? What are you doing here?"

"I spoke to Ligan. He said that you had returned and that you might want to talk to me," Aloy answers. The other woman nods and hangs her head. "Talanah, you look horrible!"

"I know. We had a rough time out there," the Sunhawk replies and reaches out to the table in front of her, where her weapons are laid out, including her bow and a large quiver of javelins. Except the quiver is empty and the only javelin on the table is snapped in half.

"What do you mean? What happened?"

"The Lodge received news that some new machines were moving into the Jewel from the West. Some land owners in Brightmarket wanted to set up their warehouses out there, so they asked us to clear them out. With the way the machines are now, I decided to assemble a team of hunters to take with me," but then Talanah waves to her tools in front of her. "Clearly we weren't prepared."

Aloy glances at the weapons and then back to Talanah. She was a fierce warrior. It must have taken a lot of resistance to wear her down. She had been there by her side when Aloy fought the Deathbringer and the machines defending Hades at the Spire, and before that she had been her Hawk, sponsoring her membership in the Lodge to help her gain some popularity. Together they had taken on many jobs from the poor and defenceless and they defeated one of the most renowned Thunderjaws to ever exist. Talanah wasn't a pushover.

"What kind of new machines?" Aloy asks. Talanah pauses and runs her fingers through her free hair as she ponders on the description.

"Have you ever seen a scorpion?" she inquires.

"Yeah. There's a bunch of them around here, aren't there? I remember being stung by one in the jungle while I slept. It didn't exactly feel great," Aloy reminisces.

Talanah chuckles. "Now imagine that, but about the size of a Behemoth. That's what we're dealing with, and there's a whole herd of them moving in from the West."

"Why are they coming here?"

"Don't know. But there are rumours that something's stirring up in the Forbidden West, forcing machines to migrate. That could be it," Talanah says, which is news to Aloy. She had never heard of anything happening in the West, nor of the migrating machines at all. She wanted to ask more questions, but they would be losing focus on what the real problem was.

"Okay, so what will it take to remove these new machines?" Aloy asks.

"A lot of firepower, and maybe a bomb to bring down one of the mesas on them. But we don't have that kind of power, and I'm afraid those machines will be moving in on Brightmarket before long."

More new machines. It almost sounded like an opportunity to study more of Gaia's creations, if only the machines weren't threatening the lakeside village. And if there was a possibility that these machines might be the hunter killers that Hephaestus was creating, then she couldn't waste time.

"I might have a way to beat them," Aloy finally announces. Talanah nods.

"Good, then let me get ready."

"What? No, Talanah you're hurt, and there will be no time to heal on the road."

"You can't tell me what to do," she snaps, which silences Aloy. "And besides, I'm not about to let my Thrush go on a hunt by herself. You need someone who can at least watch your back."

Aloy was a little bit stunned at her reaction, but it reminds her of how much she and Talanah were alike: determined; skilled, and holding little regard to what others said or did. And of course her words had to remind her of something Vale had once said. If she was going to go hunting during the Derangement, she needed a partner, and Vale was still on the mend.

"Okay, we'll go together then," Aloy nods. Talanah grins.

"Great. Give me a minute to gather my things. Oh, and take this," she reaches into one of the pockets on her belt and pulls out a little bronze medal and hands it to her. "Give that to Aidaba downstairs and she'll fit you with a new weapon."

"A new weapon? What kind of weapon?"

"One of these bad boys," Talanah says and places her hand on the large quiver. "You'll probably need something like this."

"A bow and arrow just don't cut it anymore, do they?" Aloy says with a sigh.

"Hardly, but I think it's time you started trying out new weapons anyway. I'll meet you at the front door when you're ready."

Aloy acknowledges her and goes back downstairs. On the base floor of the lodge, the bar is centred in the middle and tables are set up all around it. In the far left corner of the floor is a little shop where a single woman mans the place. Aidaba is ecstatic to see Aloy again, and when she flashes the little medal, she smiles with enthusiasm.

"Moving up the ranks, are we?" the merchant says. She produces a weapon set from the back shelf and hands it to her. "These are usually only for the most accomplished hunters, so I would consider yourself pretty special to be getting one of these."

"Uh, thanks Aidaba. I appreciate it," Aloy grins awkwardly and pulls the quiver strap over her shoulder.

"Don't forget that each javelin has its own unique element!" Aidaba adds. Aloy pauses mid-turn and stares back at her.

"Huh?"

"If you look closely, each pike has an elemental canister mounted just under the blade, things like fire, electricity and ice. Oh! And we even have a special kind of javelin that holds explosives."

"Really?" Aloy ponders, realizing that she doesn't know how to make ammo for her new weapon. "Can I buy a few stocks?"

"Sure! Just tell me which ones you want."

Aloy buys half a dozen pikes of ice and shock javelins from Aidaba. They're pretty thin so they all fit nicely into the oversized quiver. Aloy heads for the door, where the crowd from before has cut down in size considerably. Ligan spots her and points her in the right direction, finding Talanah standing just outside in front of the lodge with her weapons mounted on her back. Her hair is back up in a ponytail and she's adjusting her gauntlets as she approaches.

"I'm all set," the Sunhawk says.

"Good. I have to go see someone first and let them know I'll be gone for a while. I'll meet you just at the… what?"

Talanah is giving her a funny look.

"You're not traveling alone? I thought you were the lone wandering type," she states, her tone suggesting she's interested in knowing more.

"Not when the machines are like this. We've been traveling together for a few weeks now fighting the machines," Aloy says in a matter-of-fact tone, but it cues Talanah's amusement.

"Aloy Despite the Nora has a traveling companion? This I gotta see."

Aloy doesn't argue, she only shakes her head and signals her to follow.

They don't go to the palace. Instead they go to the south side of the city to the elevators. One of the two is still out of service so they take the only one that's working. There's a lineup to the elevator and Carja guards facilitating it because there can't be too many people in the cart at one time or the weight would be too much for the elevator to handle. It frustrates Aloy to be waiting in a line again, but unlike the last time where the lineup didn't move hardly at all, the lineup to the elevator moves at a gradual pace, and eventually she and Talanah are stuffed into the cart with nine other people waiting to go to the village at the base of the mesa.

The village of Meridian is much different than Aloy remembers. Most of the taller buildings aren't there anymore whereas a couple of new ones are being built. Half of the docks aren't there anymore either, but whether they've been torn down or were destroyed in the attack is difficult to pinpoint.

One of these new buildings is located close to the Maizeland gardens. A longhouse has been newly constructed along the mesa wall, made for the injured and disabled due to the Eclipse attack. It has two entrances at either end and Aloy can see a steady flow of people going in and out of the building. Inside, the rooms are constructed in an open space with curtains and wooden boards to section off each bed. It was a sad sight to see. Healers ran back and forth between their patients and a group of people busied themselves with mixing and grinding together herbs and medical plants in a common area in the middle of the building.

At the far end from where they entered, Vale was sitting on the side of his bed. He was down to nothing but his pants and boots, and he was covered in bandages. When he turns to see them approach, Aloy is shocked to see that his red tribal paint is removed and that a faint pink line of a scar crosses from his eyebrow into his hairline.

"Aloy, you're here," he greets in surprise.

"Uh, yeah," she responds awkwardly, trying not to stare at the scar.

 _How did he survive that?_

"Who's that with you?" Vale asks, and before she can say anything Talanah steps in front of her and holds out her hand.

"Talanah. I remember you. You came to the lodge looking for Aloy."

Vale straightens as he shakes her hand firmly. Up until that moment, Aloy completely forgot that Vale had already once come through Meridian to ask of her whereabouts before.

"The Sunhawk of the Hunting Lodge. Right," Vale recalls. "So where are you two going?"

Aloy manages to collect her thoughts. "Machine hunting. We'll be going to the edge of the Sundom so we might be gone for a few days."

"Gone?" Vale replies, clearly not happy with it. "You can't wait till I'm ready?"

"I can't. These machines are moving in on settlements and I want to stop them before they hurt someone."

"And I'll be there to watch her back," Talanah adds. "This isn't the first time we've hunted together."

Vale switches his gaze between Talanah and Aloy, still looking unsure. But whatever worries he has, he seems to push them to the side when he sighs.

"Can you promise me you'll come back this time?" he asks Aloy. She nods without hesitation.

"I promise, Vale. Give us two days. That will give you plenty of time to heal from your injuries."

"Okay. Good luck," Vale replies and lightly pounds his fist over his heart twice. It's another gesture she's unfamiliar with, but she offer him a smile in return and they turn to leave the infirmary.

… … …

Aloy and Talanah travel all day through the upper ridge north of the Sundom, sticking to the roads and fighting any angry machines they come across, which becomes the hobby of the trip. They don't fight anything bigger than the Ice Bellowbacks, but their chaotic behaviour even starts making them a challenge to defeat. They had a close call with a Sawtooth as well. Aloy was nearly torn to shreds if Talanah hadn't used one of her fire-laced javelins to set it on fire at the last second, and that's when Aloy learns of the secret mechanism attached to the javelins.

At first she thinks that Talanah has a wicked throwing arm, and after they bring down the Sawtooth, she shows Aloy the spring tech that gives the spear an extra thrust mid-air. With an echo shell, some wire and a spring, a launching mechanism is attached to the butt end of the javelin and gives it a little extra flying power, enough power to punch a Sawtooth onto its side.

They make it into the canyons east of Brightmarket before Talanah stops them for the night, her reasoning being that they would run into the machines in the middle of night if they kept going. It was better that they wait for them here and fight in broad daylight so they could see better and set up their traps. Talanah had a few, but Aloy had plenty of ways to set traps.

"I would almost say we should set up a few now so that a Watcher doesn't come by," Talanah says, spreading out the leather flaps of her tent.

"I don't think a Watcher could get up here. I'm more worried about Glinthawks."

Their choice in camp was high up in the rocks of one of the canyons that pointed out into the Great Lake. The flat rock where they spread their tents with tree branches and twigs were uncomfortable, but it served as the best place to view their surrounds below, where Talanah predicted their prey was going to pass through.

"So I've been meaning to ask…" Talanah starts as she sits down.

"Oh I bet you've been meaning to all day," Aloy replies. She can tell that her friend has been thinking about it all day. It's evident in her cheeky grins and teasing glares.

"Vale, was it? Who is he?" the Sunhawk inquires with an anxious grin on her face. Aloy glares back at her with a mean smirk.

"He's a _friend_ , who's been traveling with me for a while," she says, putting proper emphasis on the word 'friend'. She settles down in front of her tent, legs crossed and staring at the fire that was already going.

"Where is he from? He seems so different from all the hunters I've seen."

"He's not from around here. Most of his weapons are made by him, and he's wearing one of these," Aloy points to the Focus on the side of her temple and Talanah nods in understanding.

"So he's a tinkerer like an Oseram, and he's gifted with that second sight like you," Talanah says.

"Yes."

"I bet he fight's like a Tenakth. He's got all that upper body strength."

"More like a Nora brave, except his style is more close quarters. And he's as quiet as a Banuk hunter sometimes."

Talanah raises an eyebrow. "So you like him?"

The huntress is put off by the question, but she thinks fast to strike that idea down.

"I… uh, do not," she says flatly, doing her best not to make it sound exaggerated.

"No? Then what did he do to get you as a traveling partner? I know you usually walk the hunter's path alone," the Sunhawk points out.

"Well for starters, like me, he wants to stop the machines before they kill us all. I'm sure that you've noticed how difficult they've become," Aloy explains. "And because of the Derangement, I thought it would be safer to travel with someone who can handle themselves. Vale can hold his own in a fight, and we work well together. I also think that the machines hate me specifically. A few machines have already tracked me down and tried to kill me."

"The machines are hunting people?" Talanah says.

"Yes, it's happened a few times now, but it's not just me. Anyone with a long streak of destroying machines is being targeted."

"So I imagine that I'm on that list too."

"Probably. You'll have to watch your back for a while," she tells her. Talanah nods and brings her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them.

"Do you think you can do it? Stop the Derangement?"

Aloy ponders over the question and tries to come up with an answer, but it's hard. How could they stop the Derangement? How could they stop a fragmented AI in charge of making terraforming machines from killing the humans that hunted them for metal? She thinks about her conversation with the friendly AI Cyan. There were potentially millions of humans throughout the world that hunted the _billions_ of machines that outnumbered them one to a thousand. Even if they succeeded, who says that it wouldn't affect the all of them worldwide?

"I've already stopped the end of the world once," Aloy says. "I think I can do it again."

"Spoken like a true hunter," Talanah acknowledges.

They take turns sleeping throughout the night with this new machine hazard in mind. Their shifts are about three hours long each, so by the time Aloy's second shift ends, the night sky starts to brighten up and she begins packing up camp.

Once Talanah is up, they take a walk around their surroundings and start hypothesizing where best to lay their traps. The forest floor is covered in thick foliage and is ideal for tripwires. Aloy sets up the wires with her tripcaster and the best places, creating a semi-circle in the area, open to the side where the machines were predicted to come from. She then opens up her Focus and taps one of the two tethered connections waiting for her command. With the signal sent, she waits in the bushes while Talanah scouts the path to make sure those machines are going the right way.

It's not long before she hears a noise in the air and Aloy springs to her feet. She sees Talanah run into view with her bow in her hands. She stops to fire an arrow behind her and keeps running. Soon enough, the machines appear behind her.

They're exactly how Talanah had described. Giant machines with an uncanny resemblance to scorpions make their way out of the forest, a last half a dozen of them. They come equipped with a pair of large pincers and a long curved tail with a sharp bladed tip on the end of it. Aloy can recognize solar paneling on its back and the Focus reveals six sparkers mounted on its underside right by the tail. Six bright red eyes shone on each machine's head, aimed at Talanah as she races across the field towards her. Aloy lifts her bow and aims at one of the bombs hidden under the foliage, only marked by her Focus.

When she shoots it, the bomb goes off and explodes right in the face of the machine leading the herd. It stumbles to the side and triggers one of the tripwires and that also explodes, but the tripwire connects to more wires looped around the trees and blows them apart at the roots, bringing them down on the machines. While three of them get caught up in trunks and branches, the rest of them are damaged by the explosives.

Talanah runs and climbs up the rocks and joins Aloy, who's shooting the machines with her new bow, aiming for those large pincers. She hasn't seen it yet, but she bets those components could launch some sort of projectile at her.

"So what do you think of them yet?" she asks hastily and starts shooting arrows.

"They're not so tough," Aloy replies casually.

"Hah! We should have had you there the first time! We might have stood a chance then," the hunter exclaims. As one of the large machines escapes the trap, she reaches for the quiver on her back and grabs one of the javelins. With practiced precision, Talanah throws the javelin and just as it leaves her hand, the spring mechanism snaps and shoots the pike straight into the armour along the machines's broad back.

"Tch, I can't even tell what any of its weaknesses are. I thought those panels might have been a weak spot."

"Those pincers are a good place to start. It might disable the machine and stop them from attacking," Aloy points out. The huntress nods and she grabs another javelin.

Just before she throws it, however, she pauses and tilts her head, raising her ear to the sky. "Do you hear something?"

"Just a lot of angry machines in front of us!" Aloy snipes. She spares a quick glance Talanah to see what she means. "Oh, that thing in the air? Yeah, I hear it."

Talanah's eyes widen. "Wait, what?"

Just then a shadow passes over them. The other girl ducks, but Aloy watches in amazement as a large flying machine circles around the battlefield and lands up on top of the next little mesa across from them.

The King Wyvern raises itself up on its hind legs and gives out an intimidating loud roar.

"What kind of machine is that?" the Sunhawk cries.

"My secret weapon," Aloy says and raises to her feet. The winged machines spots her and she points to the machines below. "Attack!"

The King Wyvern obeys, spreading its wings wide to aim its cannons at the other machines. Bolts fire wildly into the herd, blasting metal bits, wires and tree branches. One of the scorpion-like machines raises its tail and fires a pin missile object in retaliation, but the King Wyvern retreats behind the cliff.

When it emerges again, the components along its neck light up and the machine unleashed its powerful energy beam, slicing through trees and rocks and metal as machines were practically cut in two. The area lights up in a white glow from the attack and Aloy finds it hard to stare at it, so she turns away until it's over.

When the noise dies down, she finds the battlefield is charred black. The earth is cut deeply and machine's are torn apart like paper, sparks flying and smoke rising. The King Wyvern settles down, eyeing the field for movement.

"By the Sun…" Talanah gasps. Aloy scans the area with her Focus. Dead machine carcasses are scattered on the ground, bits of metal sprinkled all over. But there's only one machine traced in an outline that's still moving.

"There's still one more machine in there," Aloy says. She rises to her feet and starts climbing down rocks. As smoke continues to rise, the large machine emerges from the forest, the least damaged by the attack, but one of its pincers is missing, chopped off by the King Wyvern's energy beam. "Not so tough without all of your buddies, are you?"

The machine's eyes flash red and it jolts into movement, but Aloy already has her bow drawn and she fires a tearblast arrow straight into the machine's head. When air explodes, metal plates are blown off their hinges and sparks jump into the air.

"We can handle it!" Aloy shouts.

"I was afraid your friend had killed them all," Talanah exclaims, gazing up at the always-impressive machine.

"If he killed them all I wouldn't get my exercise," Aloy quips as she fires another arrow. This one lodges itself in the wires that snaked up the machine's tail, but it doesn't do much more than anger it. It holds up its one good pincer and a torrent of flames expels from inside the claws and the women jump out of the way to avoid being burned.

Aloy puts her bow away and finds one of her javelins, deciding to combat the flames with a chillwater-infused spearhead. She levels the the javelin just above her shoulders and raises her other arm for balance; just how Talanah did it, aiming for the pincer as the machine flails it at Talanah to strike but misses. When Aloy sees her chance, she throws it and the javelin soars through the air gracefully, before springing mid-air and piercing the ligament. The javelin explodes in a cloud of chillwater mist and coats the component, freezing the metal and wires.

Talanah then makes her move. She picks up another javelin and throws it at the frozen component, which shatters it completely. The large machine backs away and raises its tail, pointing the sharp end at the Carja huntress.

"Talanah, it's tail!" Aloy cries. The huntress looks up and dives to the side, barely avoiding at long metal spike that shoots from the tail and impales the ground where she stood. Aloy throws another javelin again, but she misses her shot and hits the long scaled tail instead of the pin missile component. The machine turns to her now and Aloy runs for cover behind a tree. Talanah finds her and joins her.

"I only got one left," she says, holding up her last javelin. Aloy can see that it's primed with an explosive.

"I know how we can end this quickly," she says, grabbing another ice pike.

"What do you want me to do?" Talanah asks.

"Distract it. Give me time to aim my shot, and then you can take yours."

She doesn't need to explain much else for Talanah to understand what she means. She nods with a smile and she runs out from their hiding place.

The scorpion machine spots her and raises its tail. It gets two shot off – both of which miss Talanah barely – before Aloy gets a clear shot and throws her spear at the machine's head. Hoarfrost mist cover's the machine lenses and it shakes about to try and get rid of it. Talanah stops and immediately throws her spear, which hits right where the machine is frozen and explodes on impact. The machine collapses to the ground, a big gaping hole and split wires where its head had once been.

"Not so tough," Aloy reprimands proudly, standing over the machine. At this point it's almost unrecognizable compared to the other machines scattered throughout the field. Their traps had worked pretty well.

"You made that look easy," Talanah says as she appears at her side. She looks around at the results and then looks back up at the only standing machine, perched up on the rocks, looking down at them with it's wings folded in. "Where did you find him?"

"Up in the Claim, causing a ruckus," Aloy answers with a casual shrug. "We call it a King Wyvern."

"A King Wyvern, huh?" Talanah mumbles, looking up at the machine admiringly. "It definitely _looks_ like a king. Was it created because of the Derangement?"

"I don't think so. I think it was created long before that, it's just gone undiscovered until now," the Nora explains. The King Wyvern moves, climbing down the rocks to join them. It examines one of the dead machines before picking it up with its jaws and starts tearing it apart. There's a grinding sound and the crunch of metal as it _chews_ and _swallows_ the metal and wires whole, sitting back on its hind legs likes its sitting on a bench eating a casual snack, looking pleased with itself.

Both Talanah and Aloy give each other strange looks.

"So much for looting the bodies."

"We can still bring a trophy back for the Lodge," Aloy says and goes up to one of the dead machines. The tail component is still together, mostly. She takes her hunting knife and cuts part of the mechanism off and hands it to Talanah. "There's your proof of taking down a machine herd."

The Sunhawk grins and holds up the hunk of metal. "I think I'll hang it up right next to our trophy from Redmaw. What about him?"

Aloy looks up at the King Wyvern chowing away on its food and places her hand on her hips to ponder the question.

"We'll let him feast. He'll be here a while."

The machine emits a low growl in reply as it eats away, content and satisfied with where it was.

* * *

A scorpion machine appears! And so does a new kind of weapon! I'm trying to imply all sorts of new games mechanics into this story. This whole chapter is an example of that. Machine migrations? Get a chance to take down a whole herd of powerful machines with the help of your new flying friend. Call in a King Wyvern Strike and wipe out half the herd before finishing off what's left on your own, and gather up massive amounts of loot and treasures!

User **reddevil47** on the site commented that this story was like reading a sequel to the game, which made me super happy! So the idea for this chapter was in honour of you, my friend!


	18. The Extinction Demand Pt 1

**The Extinction Demand Pt. 1**

-Aloy and Vale make a journey to the Cut, where hopefully they can learn more about the Command Protocol Initiative…

* * *

The hustle of the market traders and the bustle of the civilian traffic is a familiar sight to Vale. Sellers try and boast about their best wares to sell to customers and people flutter about the streets doing their daily chores. Around the centre of the city, men in robes gather at the shrine in the middle and start humming a soft melody that goes on throughout the morning and stops as the day starts to get hotter. He imagines they are priests or something of the like, which kind of baffles him, because sitting on top of the shrine is a monument depicting a glorified red orb encased in polished metal.

 _They really do worship the sun…_

As Vale walks around to the edge of the city – fully geared up in his armour, aside from the winter robe he bought in Ironwood which he ditched in Meridian's warmer weather – he stops and gazes out at the enormous tower sitting on top of the other large mesa across the way. He's never seen a fully standing Spire before, and it's amazing to see it sit there in a perfect upwards angle, absorbing the sun's light like a shadow, primed like a blade of darkness ready to cut open the sky. It's a wonder how the Carja see it as holy sign rather than a bad omen.

But according to Minerva, these towers had stopped the Faro Plague. He had to get up close to it, see what a functioning tower could do. But he couldn't do that without talking to Avad first, and he couldn't get to him without Aloy. So he was struck in the city until her return.

Vale turns and walks back into the heart of the city, finding the marketplace again where the things of interest catch his attention the most: the weapons. He browses the large selection of tools, finding a large slingshot to be one of the foreign things. He knew Aloy had one, but this one was different still somehow. It was… simpler. Maybe there were other more powerful versions out there. But it didn't interest him.

Instead he tested out a new weapon: a spear. It was bladed on the end like the ones the Carja soldiers carried around, so it weighed more on one side. It would make a poor javelin, and the bladed end wasn't counterbalanced. He didn't buy it.

Looking through some more options, Vale finds an irregular sight: one of the priests had entered the marketplace, slowly pacing down the street. His robes were slightly different, however. They were darker, and no guards followed him. Back in the Kingdoms, the clergy was often followed by two or three guards whenever they were outside of the temples. The city was well protected from machines, so maybe that was why the need for guards wasn't so prominent.

But then another man in robes passes by. Vale swears he stares right at him, but it's only for a fraction of a second before he turns away and disappears around the corner. If it had only been him, Vale wouldn't think anything of it.

Except he isn't the only one.

Vale notices three more people in dark robes coming in and out of the streets. He can't tell if they're the same people or not; their robes cover their entire bodies. He's never felt much in the way of paranoia before, but this doesn't sit right with him. He needs to seclude himself, or find a place where he would feel safe. Maybe he could find Erend if he wasn't busy in the palace.

He weaves through crowds and streets towards the Sun King's palace, keeping an open eye out for any of those shady characters. When he spots one in front of him, he turns and heads down an alleyway instead, hoping to avoid running into them directly. It's then that he realizes he hasn't explored Meridian's back alleys very much. But he figures if he keeps heading towards the palace, which is still visible over the buildings around him, he can make it.

Unfortunately that's not the case. As he paces quickly down the alleyway, he's cut off as one of those robed individuals steps out from another alleyway in front of him. Vale comes to a full stop and turns around, but two more people are coming up behind him, also cloaked in the same robes. To his left, another.

"I take it you guys are _not_ part of the priesthood,"

"That would be inappropriate," the one in front of him replies. "I'm glad we found you in good health, Vale."

"Excuse me?" Vale questions. The man then pulls back his hood and undoes the string keeping his robe over his shoulders. Vale doesn't recognize his face, but when the robe falls to the ground it reveals the man is wearing black armour over red clothes, with an insignia engraved onto a crest over his chest. The others relieve themselves of their robes and it turns out they are wearing the same kind of armour.

"Her Majesty is waiting in anticipation for your return, but I'm sure you knew that when you abandoned her," the man speaks again. Vale blinks twice before he realizes what the man is talking about.

"You mean her tyrant of a king? I thought I announced my retirement years ago," he snipes. "Clearly that didn't make it to all ears."

"Oh, it did. But your services are required once again," the man flings out his wrists and from under his sleeves, knives slide into his hands. He holds them crossed in front of him, as if this was a casual thing. "Come with us peacefully."

"How did you find me?" Vale's gaze at him sharpens as he finally identifies the man in front him; the cool tone in his voice and slicked back hair. Vale doesn't dare make a move or reach for his weapons, because he knows the others around him have also drawn their knives.

"Word of your exploits in the City of Metal reached far," the man explains and gives him a wicked grin. "An entire tribe destroyed. Very well done."

Vale doesn't make a sound, but the muscles in his body tense up in anticipation.

"But it wasn't hard, really. Once we got your mother to speak we—"

If his subordinates hadn't been there to hold Vale back, he might have been tackled. They were only a fraction of a second faster, but even the three of them were struggling to keep him back.

"What did you do to her?" he hissed.

"We left her unscathed, only frightened a bit," the man answers, not at all concerned how close Vale was to reaching his throat. "She told us where you were going. And once our liege was informed, he sent his best to find you."

"And the desert? How did you cross it?" Vale demanded.

"Oh, it was a perilous journey. We suffered some losses, but they understood the sacrifice."

Vale laughed.

"Sacrifice? Or was it murder for their resources? You need to be prepared for that kind of journey!"

"There was no choice…" whether the man was distraught by this fact or not was hard to tell, or maybe he hadn't practiced his sad face well enough. But Vale knew better than to think pity and sorrow were traits this man possessed. "But now that we have you, we'll take you back to the capital and we can discuss your re-endorsement into the army."

"Hate to break it to you, but I work alone now," Vale tells him. He then whips his head back into the grunt holding him from behind, smacking his head and unleashing his grip, allowing Vale to pull his arms forward and whip them back, knocking over the assailants on either side of him.

The man in front of him throws his knives with an easy, practiced motion, but Vale turns and lets his shield mounted on his back block the weapons. The others get to their feet and try to kick him as Vale bounces around them, jumping off the wall to get around them and out of the trap. But one of them grabs him by the ankle and brings him down.

He can hear the unsheathing of blades. Before he gets back up, he grabs his helmet hooked onto his belt and quickly slips it on.

Vale gets to his feet, but one of them is already on top of him. They kick him in the stomach and in the side of the knee before Vale manages to move and block the next strike with his forearm, the knife scraping against his metal brace. He grabs the man's wrist and twists his arm until he lets go of the knife. Vale nabs it before it hits the ground and throws it at the other assailant, landing the knife deep in his chest.

The third man from before comes in with knives swinging, but Vale shoves his foe into him. From above, he can see the interrogator from before fall towards him with knives raised high but he blocks his attack by grabbing his wrists. He pulls him over his shoulder and tosses him down the street and turns around in time to dodge the next attack. Vale pulls his hammer from his back to parry the next few blows. He finds an opening and slams the weapon against the man's leg, a distinct _crack_ making the man cry out as the bone breaks. Vale twists his weapon the other way and nails the sharp end into the side of the man's head.

Vale turns around as the next assailant comes in with his knife levelled to his head, but the blade scrapes against his helmet and Vale grunts as he shakes his head. Surprised his attack failed, the man pauses, allowing Vale to reach up and wrap his fingers around the man's neck. He reels back and thrusts his head forward in a vicious headbutt and knocks him out.

"Your skills have improved immensely, Vale," the same man from before speaks, the one he had thrown over his shoulder. "The King will be pleased to have you leading his army."

"I'm better than you think," Vale replies as he puts his hammer away. He pulls out his own knife and twirls it in his hand. "I'm more than enough to take you on."

"We'll see about that," the man hisses and lunges at him. Vale blocks both of his swings with his forearms, but then the man kicks his feet out from under him. Vale falls on his back and the man whips a knife at him, but he rolls on his side and avoids it. As he gets up, the man brings his leg around and kicks him in the face, making him stumble.

He keeps his footing, however, and quickly turns and whips his knife at him. The other man throws his knife to deflect it, but it doesn't work completely as the blades collide and one of them finds its mark in the man's shoulder. The man yells and pulls the blade out, but Vale charges forward and brings his knee up to the man's chest, sending him sprawling into the ground. He picks up one of the knives and grabs the man by the collar, pressing him against the wall and pinning him up by plunging his knife into the man's other shoulder. The man screams.

"You're confidence belies your skills, Revere," Vale hisses.

"Ngh… indeed this is an unprecedented outcome. I'll need a better… method of persuasion," Revere tries to say as smoothly as he can, but the pain in his shoulder makes that difficult as he speaks through clenched teeth.

"And maybe reinforcements. You're in foreign lands with no backup. With no companions for you to sacrifice, how do you plan on getting back to your king?" Vale asks, before he clenches his fist and punches the man in the face, knocking him out.

He turns around as the last man gets to his feet. He has a big purple bruise on his forehead. Vale moves lightning quick, bringing his foot up under the man's jaw in a forceful kick that smashes the man against the wall. He can hear a distinct crack as the body goes limp and collapses as soon as he removes his foot.

… … …

They arrive in Meridian with time to spare, as the sun begins touching the horizon that turns the sky orange and yellow. Aloy and Talanah make it on the back of a Fire Bellowback, but have to ditch it before they come out of the forest south of Brightmarket and in sight of the city guards along the northern path. With their winnings in tow, they are greeted back into the city without any hassle from the guards at the main entrance.

They head back to the Lodge, where they are given a hearty welcome by most of the hunters there and assaulted with questions about their most recent hunt. When Talanah shows them the trophy from the new machine, they all cheer and congratulate them.

"We're going have to put that in the record book of great hunts, right under our victory over Redmaw," Talanah says with a grin. "I can't thank you enough."

Aloy waves her hand dismissively. "It was nothing, Talanah. I'm glad I could help."

Talanah nods. "It's always a joy to hunt with you. I'll give you a shout when the next machine herd comes around."

"If I'm around, sure. Take care," Aloy says and waves a final goodbye before turning and leaving the Lodge. The lamps and torches around the city are already lit and the crowd of people is dispersing noticeably. As the shadows grow long, Aloy looks around the city until her eyes lay upon the Sun Palace. It was time to talk to Avad about the Spire.

It was time to get the Master Override.

Before anything, Aloy makes the decision to find Vale and see how he's faring. It's most likely that he's healed from his wounds and he'll want to get out and join her, so she heads for the elevator.

It's to her surprise that when the elevator cart reaches the top, Vale is the one to walk out of it.

"You're back!" he exclaims as he exits the elevator. He's suited up in his regular armour with his winter robe absent, and his red paint is smeared across his brow and into his hair, covering up the scar she had noticed before she had left. "How'd the hunting trip go?"

"Good. We managed to stop a herd of new machines from moving into the jungle," Aloy say, which inspires an eyebrow to quirk up on the man's face.

"They weren't…"

"No, they weren't sent by Hephaestus. They were just a type of machine I've never encountered before," she explains quickly.

"Oh, good, I guess," Vale replies, and motions with his arm towards the palace. "Does this mean we get to move on now?"

"Yes. We need to speak to Avad, get permission to enter the Alight," she replies and waves for him to follow, and the two of them take a walk around the city to the palace bridge. There's still an absence of guards around Meridian, even at the palace. With her presence, however, the Carja guards allow them to proceed without hinderance. Aloy follows the path up to the centre of the palace, knowing it well enough. She finds the doors to the back are open and Avad and Erend speaking to each other.

"…The new recruits will have to take some time getting used to the routines. I'll whip them into shape," Erend was saying.

"Good. Every soldier helps," Avad replies and sees her approaching. "Aloy, welcome. What you've done by bringing Erend back to me can't be expressed with mere words. I'm in your debt."

"It was nothing, Avad."

"Hah! Nothing, she says," Erend smirks. "You should have seen her, Avad. She found my battered my ass and conquered the new machine threat like it was just a regular morning for her. I wouldn't be standing here right now if it wasn't for her." As Aloy shuffles her feet in coy awkwardness, Erend places his hand on her shoulder. She looks up at him and sees the genuine admiration in his eyes. "Thank you. And you have my thanks as well," he adds, turning to Vale. He gives him a curt nod.

"With Erend back we can begin strengthening our defences again, which should ease many of the people's worries and protect us from the Derangement," Avad says. Aloy takes this chance to speak.

"About that," both men turn to her. "Vale and I are working on a solution, but we need to go to the Spire at the Alight. I left something there."

"Balahn and his men were sent to the Alight to reinforce the guard there ever since the battle. I'll take you there so there's no interruptions," Erend tells her.

"Good. Once we have what we need, we'll be leaving."

"If I may inquire," Avad cuts in, "Aloy, the Derangement affects us all. Every machine out there has been getting angrier with us over the past twenty years. How do you plan to stop it?"

The look in the King's eyes was keen, but somehow Aloy could sense the desperation in his words. The bloody history of the Carja was an indirect result of the Derangement, and anyone looking for relief from that needed hope. Unfortunately, she can't find the words to give him that hope without confusing him.

"I'm… not sure how yet. But I know where to look. It's just a matter of finding the answers," Aloy replies. Avad hides his disappointment with a nod.

"Then I wish you the best of luck. And if you need anything from us in the future, I am obligated to give it, after all you've done for us."

"I wouldn't ask more than you can give, Avad. I know your people are still recovering… but, thank you. It's reassuring knowing someone has my back." She turns to Erend then. "Shall we go?"

"Let's move."

The three of them leave the Sun Palace and go all the way through town to the elevator down to the bottom of the mesa, through the lower village and across the field to the other mesa where the Spire stands. At the first set of steps, Carja soldiers keep watch for any man or machine that might make an approach. Erend leads the way and speaks to them, allowing Aloy and Vale to begin the climb. The whole time they are walking, Aloy realizes the Vale has his hand up to his Focus, and his gaze is always pointed towards the tall structure. With his advanced Focus, she's curious as to what kind of information he's able to pull from the Spire. They still can't connect their Focuses together.

Unlike the war-torn path the last time Aloy had to climb to get to the Spire – which has already been rebuilt – the gradual slope and steps is a much easier path to climb. Every once and a while they pass by a guard stationed along the path, and once they reach the top they can be seen all over the mesa top. The centre platform has been cleared of rubble and the Deathbringer she had defeated in that very spot is gone.

Up close, the Spire is still impressive, and it's a welcoming sight to see it not under Hades control. All the latches and platforms are closed, resulting in its jagged, but perfectly angled shape. Aloy finds herself walking across the field until she's within range that she can scan it with her Focus, but as before, it doesn't reveal much.

"I've never seen a Spire untouched like this up close," Vale says in awe, his Focus light lit up. "The only other one I known of is collapsed."

"It's impressive, isn't it?" Aloy replies and Vale nods slowly. She lowers her gaze to the base of the tower, and a shiver runs up her spine.

Sitting there is the giant round node that carried the Hades sub function, and still impaled in its hull is the spear harbouring the Master Override.

She walks up to it but is afraid to touch it. She can still remember the shock of electricity running through her body when she stabbed the node with the spear. The staff still shimmers with that faint blue glow and the Master Override has a single blinking light on it that shows that it still has power. She places one finger on the staff, then two, and then curls her whole hand around the grip. Slowly, she pulls on the spear and yanks it out of place with one hand and holds it out in front of her.

"That's it?" Vale asks, looking unsure. "That tiny little thing?"

"It's what helped me purge Hades and stop the Faro machines from awakening all over the world," Aloy says. "Haven't you heard that great things come in small packages?"

Vale gives her a strange look and replies with "No," which invites an awkward silence to cut between them. Aloy clears her throat and mounts the spear onto her back, right next to her homemade one.

"Anyways, we should get a head start. I want to be out of the city before it becomes too dark."

"Towards the east. That's what you said right? A friendly machine that might be able to help us," Vale confirms.

"Yeah, up in Banuk territory. Normally it would take us another week to get up there, but I'm hoping our new machine friends can get us get there quickly. I don't want to be wasting any more time then we have to," the huntress says and turns towards the centre of the Alight. "I don't want to rely on them too much, but this is important."

"I know. The sooner we can end the Derangement, the less people have to die."

Erend meets up with them as soon as he notices them walking away from the Spire. Two Carja soldiers follow him, one of them Aloy recognizes as Captain Balahn, dressed in very similar armour to the outfit he wore when they first met. She can see a long curved piece of sharp metal hanging at his hip; a sabre sword

"The Alighted One graces us with her presence," he greets her, but there's no amount of awe in his voice as he says this, only subtle amusement. Aloy grins.

"Captain. It's good to see you."

"And you as well. I heard what you did for my men back at Daytower. Thank you for that. These machines are really becoming… a bother."

"It was the right thing to do. That machine only attacked the fort because of me," she explains, before she even thinks about it. Both Erend and Balahn give her odd looks. Boy, she was getting a lot of those lately.

"What do you mean by that?" Balahn inquires curiously. Aloy rubs her neck nervously and looks away.

"It's hard to explain…"

"We're being hunted," Vale answers for her. Balahn regards him with silent acknowledgment while Erend stares in concern.

"Hunted?"

Vale nods. "The machines are sending assassins after us. I guess they're not happy with what we're doing."

"They're not just after us. Vale found a… hit list," Aloy adds. "Machines are hunting humans around the world, which is all the more reason to find a way to calm them before it's too late."

"Wait, if the machines are hunting you, then you need more protection! I'll commission a few men to be your guards," Erend offers, but Aloy raises her hand and quickly shakes her head. She can see the panic and worry in his eyes.

"That's won't be necessary, Erend. More people are a bigger target, and Vale and I can move faster when it's just the two of us," she hastily responds, the idea of a bodyguard kind of ludicrous to her. Erend takes a good long look at her, as if trying to read her thoughts and find her hidden fears. But he sighs in defeat.

"Alright… but you have to promise me no fighting any battles you know you can't win. The world still needs you, Aloy," he pleads.

"I know, Erend. I'll see you again. I promise," she then turns to Vale and says, "let's go."

As the pair descend from the Alight, Erend's words echo through Aloy's thoughts and she begins to grasp how significant they are. From an outside point of view, the world _does_ need her. Her ability to open secret underground ruins and explore their secrets had helped her save the world once already. Her skill in hunting machines and surviving in the wilds allowed Aloy to travel to far away places and her nature allowed her to connect to people.

Of course she herself didn't like to think that the world needed her. She could easily have been someone different, she could have pushed people away instead of accepting their help or looking for the answers she was always so damn curious about. But here she was.

As her mind wanders around this concept, Vale cuts in with a question of his own. "So what kind of machines were you hunting?"

Aloy half hears it, so lost in her thoughts and so she has to ask him to repeat it.

"The machines you hunted with Talanah. What were they like, if you've never seen them before?"

"Oh. Uh… they were kind of big, with long curled tails, pincers… they looked a lot like…"

"Scorpions?"

Aloy halts in her steps. "Yes. How did you guess that?"

"A Desert Pike. You fought a Desert Pike. There's a whole bunch of them in the desert that stretch across these lands and mine," Vale explains. "And there's a bunch more in the dry mountains that border the south."

Aloy stares at him with her jaw agape. "You knew what kind of machines we were hunting," she realizes with irritation. The man raises his hands in surrender, sensing that irritation.

"You never asked. You said they came from the West. _I'm_ from the West. _Of course_ I would have fought a machine like that before. They're pincers expel flames. They hate the cold, and they got this annoying spike launcher on their tails. My shield is made from some of their armour materials."

Everything Vale explained about the machine was perfectly on point and reflected how their fight with the herd went. It never occurred to her to ask for advice before leaving, or that Vale might have some knowledge on their prey.

It then occurred to her that at some point, she was gonna have to travel to his homeland to find the sub function Minerva, and she knew very little about his lands, about what the terrain was like or what kind of tribes lived there, or what kind of machines populated the west coast.

"Do you think you'll be able to tell me more about your home sometime? I'd like to know more in case we have to go that way," she requests.

"Sure, anytime you like," Vale agrees, giving her a small nod. She smiles and it shallows her fears. For now.

* * *

I'm updating on a Thursday because I won't be here tomorrow, so you guys get an early look into the next chapter.

A little mystery starts off this chapter! And how long do we have to wait for answers? Well this new quest will take us back and forth across the Sundom before we head to the kingdoms of Vale's homeland, so not as long as you think. It probably actually is in retrospect cause I only update this once a week, but look how far we've come in 17 chapters!


	19. The Extinction Demand Pt 2

**The Extinction Demand Pt. 2**

* * *

Flying through the clouds on the back of a machine was absolutely Aloy's new favourite thing. The experience was unlike anything she imagined it would be. To feel the wind whip through her hair and see so much of the world at once, to flying from point A to point B in a matter of hours and see how the machines on the ground became the sizes of ants, it was all breathtaking and exhilarating at the same time. It was a perspective of the world she had never dreamed about seeing before.

From Meridian, they flew east back towards the Sacred Land, except they crossed over the northern border pass, over the field of long-since-rusted machine towers, of which Vale was utterly fascinated by, until they came to Red Echo's at the cropping of jagged red rocks. From there, Aloy and Vale mutually decided to travel by foot. Turns out flying in frigid weather conditions was a much more tedious trial than they thought, the cold freezing wind of the north biting into their skin. Needless to say, it was good to be on the ground again.

The snow was thicker here than it ever was in the Claim. Their feet sunk beyond their ankles and challenged them to keep a steady footing in the frozen forests. As they arrived at the base of the valley that lead up to the ruins of the Grave Hoard, Aloy could see more clouds coming in from the north. Looks like their journey was only beginning.

The interesting part of their journey was as they approached the ruins, they discovered a cave dug out near one of the frozen lakes, one that Aloy had never seen before. Granted, she had never really explored anywhere near the ponds, not wanting to risk getting into a fight the Glinthawks that were there and fall through the ice. With the metal titan hovering above them and the graveyard that sat deep in the ruins, the place gave her the creeps.

But after dispatching the flying machines anyway, they found that the cave revealed a secret. Another giant metal shell, like the one they had found in the bandit camp, protecting a delicate little tree with pink cotton all over its branches. Aloy had never seen a tree like this before. The cotton was so light and fluffy. She could imagine the Carja weavers in Meridian making something beautiful out of this material. But the cold temperatures in this area meant the cotton would freeze over and be ruined. This was not the place for this tree. Whatever had placed this place obviously had a long running plan. She records the index at the base of the machine, closed it up and kept moving.

When they camp out that night, they try to find a spot huddled in the middle of the snow-skinned trees to give them as much cover as possible. They're both weary that one of Hephaestus' machines could pop out of the wilderness at any minute. Vale volunteers to take first watch. Aloy wants to argue, but after all that happened that day, she's exhausted and she curls up in her sleeping furs next to the fire. When she wakes up, it's suddenly morning, the fire is nothing but bright embers and Vale is awake. Tired, but alert with his hammer in his lap and his Focus on. They were never discovered.

The climb is another ordeal they had to endure. Aloy was prepared for it. Climbing was one of her special abilities, an adaptive skill that all Nora braves were expected to have. She could clear the cliffs and rocky edges easily. Well, not _easily_. The frosted rock bit her fingertips and scraped her knees and elbows, making the climb up the rock a needless torture.

And surprisingly, Vale kept in pace. He wasn't the climber like she was, but the agility he lacked was made up for in his skill with the rope. He threw the rope high and ensnared any rocky edges or overhanging tree branches with ease and hoisted himself up, using only his upper body strength to pull himself up quickly. When Aloy reaches the end of her climbing, he was right there with her.

From there it was a steady uphill walk into Banuk lands. The tunnels that led the way were still lit with blue Banuk-style lanterns and a frigid breeze could be felt blowing in their faces. Aloy wrapped her cloak around her tighter. The cold temperatures of the Cut was something she definitely didn't miss.

"Have you ever met the Banuk, Vale?" she asks behind her. Vale shakes his head.

"Never. What are they like?"

"A lot of them are hunters, and they value survival in the wilds above all else. They think that all machines have a soul that they refer to as the Blue Light, and that it animates all living things."

"Sounds like a hardy tribe," Vale replies. "Is there any truth to the Blue Light?"

"Sort of. The Banuk believed that the machines used to be friendly towards humans before the Derangement started. The blue light that shines in their eyes is where they got the idea from, I suppose."

Vale is quiet for a moment, reminding Aloy of what she had told Talanah on their hunting trip earlier about his silent nature.

"Is the blue light in the Cauldron the same thing?" he asks.

"Uh, kind of. I mean it's the same power that keeps the machines alive, so yeah, I guess they're all one in the same."

"Hmm."

When they come to the end of the tunnel, it's late in the morning and clouds coat the sky in a grey hue with a light snowfall coming down. More blue lanterns light the way to the Banuk village that's not far away: Song's Edge.

There's nobody to greet them when they get there, but Aloy catches some of the glares that the Banuk hunters toss her way. Some of them regard her with little interest, while others stare on in shock, her hunting prowess still resonating within the rumours the people have spread. She doesn't make an attempt to stop and chat with any of them. She hardly recognizes anyone here.

At the other end of the village they stop, where the path winds down the side of the cliff into the wilds of the Cut. Aloy looks up and turns left towards the mountains and points.

"There's ruins up there, an old bunker made by the Old Ones. That's where we can find some answers."

"That's where our friendly AI is?" Vale replies, looking annoyed. "Not the most convenient spot…"

"There's a path that winds around the mountains to the back, but it's longer. If we cut through the Shaman's Path, it'll be quicker," Aloy offers. Vale then stares at her expectingly.

"I feel a 'but' coming on."

" _But_ there's Stalkers and difficult terrain to traverse."

The man crosses his arms. "Yeah, I figured. Pick your preference."

"Aloy," a gruff voice speaks from behind them. Aloy turns and finds a Banuk werak chieftain approaching them. He's a boulder of a man; easily taller than Vale and just about twice as big, with a hefty spear in his hands. Despite his daunting appearance, he meets them with kind and soft eyes.

"Aratuk. It's good to see you," Aloy greets, bowing her head.

"As it is you. What brings you back to our lands? Are you here to talk to Cyan?"

Aloy nods, but she doesn't miss the stunned look that appears on Vale's face. She forgot to tell him; Aratuk knew who Cyan was as well.

"Yes, I need her counsel. I need to see if she knows what we can do to end the Derangement," she answers.

"End the Derangement? Is that possible?" the chieftain inquires, the awe and surprise raw in his voice.

"It might be. The daemon that captured Cyan might be the one behind it, so I'm going to talk to her to see if she knows anything that might help."

Aratuk nods. "Indeed her insight is valuable. But unfortunately I haven't been able to visit her as much as I want to."

"Why is that?"

"The very thing you seek to end. It has made the journey perilous. More machines guard the path and the mountain holding Ourea's Retreat. I don't want to risk taking my werak up there if they fight just as fiercely as the machines in Thunder's Drum did." There's a solemn look in Aratuk's eyes then. Anyone could have mistaken it for grief, but Aloy knew the sadness he felt when he spoke of the events that were connected to his sister's death. She wanted to help him overcome that sadness. She wanted to bring him to Cyan, his last living connection to Ourea.

"Vale and I are going to make the journey," Aloy begins. "And you can join us too, Aratuk."

Aratuk looks up at her in surprise. Vale does too, but he remains silent.

"I would be honoured to accompany my once-chieftain, if it means I can see Cyan and avoid any casualties but my own."

"There will be no casualties today. We'll meet you at the start of the Shaman's Path when you're ready," Aloy tells him.

"Then I will meet you there, and we will carve a path with the power of the Blue Light," Aratuk replies and leaves them. Once he's out of sight, Aloy glances over at the other man in her company, who's giving her an expectant look.

" _What_ is going on here?" Vale asks. Aloy smirks and waves her hand.

"Follow. I'll explain on the way there."

The road to Shaman's Path is a much easier trek then the climb up to Song's Edge, but they both keep their guard up for any machines that might reveal themselves in the trees. Aloy is hazardously aware that Frostclaws populate the Cut, and she wants to avoid them as much as possible. She highly doubts that is possible in their journey to Ourea's Retreat.

Aloy explains everything that had happened here in the Cut: the daemon – which was really Hephaestus, the repair towers, Aratuk and Ourea, the Epsilon Cauldron, Varga, Ikrie and the Fireclaws. Vale listens without interruption and she talks until she can feel her voice become raw. By that time they've crossed most of the forest and are close to the start of the trial.

"So Aratuk believes that Cyan is just a spirit of their Blue Light, not an AI," Vale finally says, handing her a canteen of water that he pulls from behind his shield. It's made out of metal and has a component attached to the bottom of it. It's the strangest looking canteen she's ever seen, but she takes it gratefully and nods.

"Yes. He knows nothing of the other AIs or about the terraforming system. I don't know what Cyan has told him, but he's never asked me about it before." The water in the canteen is warmer to contrast the weather around them, and it beeps at her when she finds it empty. "What is this?"

"Remember when I told that I crossed the desert?" Vale inquires. Aloy vaguely recalls the conversation. She was amazed that anyone had the guts to cross it, but then she remembers _how_ Vale was able to and observes the device in her hands.

"This device turns chillwater into regular water!" she realizes, fascinated. "Why am I just seeing this now?"

"I've always had it out, you've just never noticed," Vale replies. "I also think I've never heard you talk that much all at once."

Aloy huffs. "Says the one who hardly says anything at all," she tosses the canteen back to him. "Thanks."

When they find the Banuk flag and banner that mark the beginning of Shaman's Path, they sit and wait. Aloy takes this chance to go over her supplies and ammo. She hasn't had the chance to build her metal arrows, sufficing with her usual wooden arrows and her old bow. She also has her tripcaster and sling, a sac of blast bombs with it. She pulls her winter furs around her tighter as the day wears on, the falling snow whipping in her face as the wind kicks in.

Fortunately it isn't long before Aratuk joins them, with nothing but his trusty spear in his hands. He has this determined look on his face that says he's ready to take on the trial before them as if he hasn't done so many times before.

"Ready to go?" she asks.

"I am. To march alongside you Aloy, no machine shall stand between us and our goal," Aratuk boasts.

"I'm here too…" she hears Vale mumble behind her. She flashes him a lopsided smirk and faces the trail.

"Good, between the three of us, we should make it past the machine and get to Cyan. I'm only concerned with what kind of machines wait for us up there."

"It doesn't matter," the Banuk chieftain responds as he starts walking. "They will fall to our spears."

When he out of earshot, Vale waves his arms. "Do I _look_ like chopped liver?"

"Should have bought one in Meridian," Aloy says and picks one of the javelins from her stash mounted on her back, beside her bow. "Or you could have picked one of these."

"Where'd you get that?" he inquires.

"At the Hunter's Lodge. You have to be recognized for your prowess by the Sunhawk to get one. Looks like you'll need to visit a hunting grounds sometime," she tells him. Vale mumbles something unintelligible under his breath before they start the climb.

The beginning of the path is an uphill climb through the windchill and snow, so by the time they've reached the mouth of the first cave entrance, Aloy can barely feel her toes and frost covers the shoulders of her cloak and the edges of her hood. The metal on her braces and shins is ice cold. Even Vale's side swept hair has a thin coat of frost on it, and he doesn't seem to be enjoying it. Aratuk, the ever stoic man that he is, practically wears the frost as a second coat, and he doesn't seem phased at all.

They enter the caves with their weapons drawn. Aloy remembers how Stalkers creeped in the corners of the caverns, their invisible cloaking modules making them impossible to see with the ice walls reflecting the light of the lamps and totem contraptions that led the way. Who knows if something worse had found its way in here.

They come up to the first clue. Aratuk activates the device, pulling the rope so that the lantern points in the right direction, but just as it fell, a roar came from deep within the cave and all at once they raised their weapons. Gauging by how deep it sounded, it was a big machine.

"What was that?" Vale piped out.

"I'm not sure," Aratuk says slowly. He glances at Aloy and she glances at Vale.

"Only one way to find out," she concludes and takes the first step forward into the cave. The other two follow closely.

Without the wind and the snow, Aloy can start to feel herself warm up. Her toes are still frozen, but she can feel her core body heat rising, even at the slow pace they are moving. She leads the way, following the lantern clues and the wind chimes that her Focus pick up. She especially keeps her eyes open for any shimmering lights that might hint at a cloaked Stalker, but the ice reflects everything and her eyes dart from corner to corner to see if a machine might be there. There never is. Until she lights up her Focus again.

"Watchers, on the other side of the wall. Redeyes, by the looks of it," she whispers back to the other two.

"Is it your second sight telling you this?" Aratuk questions. She nods and he raises his spear a little more.

"This is only the beginning. They're watching for something."

"But what could they be guarding?" Vale cuts in. "You can take them out with your bow, Aloy."

"I know. Stay here until I signal you to move," she whispers and creeps forward on her own. She can track the movement of the Watchers and finds one of them on a path that circles the corner. She waits and finds her spear, marking the machine so she knows when to strike. The Redeye Watcher appears around the corner, but doesn't see her until it turns around. Aloy moves with all her viable muscle strength the cold allows her and makes a quick, clean kill with a stab to the eye.

The other Watchers faces the other way, down the tunnel that inclines upwards and opens up to the pit where the Stalkers usually crawl. She would have to be extra quiet with this kill to not alert them.

She lured it down the tunnel with a whistle, and a few seconds later, both Watchers were dead and she was signalling the other two men to move forward. Aloy creeps up to the ledge, where a tightrope strings across the gap, and down below is the pit where the Stalkers patrol.

"This isn't going to be easy with three of us," she murmurs as the other two catch up. She knew it wouldn't have been easy if it was just her and Vale. Heck, it wasn't easy when it was _just her_ on her first time passing through this trial on her own.

"How do we find the Stalkers?" Vale wonders aloud.

"You don't," Aratuk replies. "They find you."

"I'll set some traps. We're not gonna be able to get past them without a fight," Aloy says. "Wait for my signal again, and get ready to fight."

She manages the tightrope on her own, but before she crosses it completely she drops a detonation trap. It sticks to the ground below and beeps quietly. Just as Aloy gets to the end, she can see a shimmer of light approaching the trap she set. As much as she want to blow up the device in the machine's face, she wants to set more traps first.

Aloy goes and follows the path down to where it meets with the pit. She sets a tripwire at the end of the tunnel as a means of retreat in case one of the invisible machines discovers her. She then goes around and places more traps, proximity bombs and tripwires. Only once did she fear that she had been discovered by one of the machines. She saw a ripple of light through the ice in front of her, and then the ever-faintest blue glow of the Stalker's eyes. But they never turned toward her and never turned red. It moved right along, allowing her to escape.

When Aloy returns to the path she came from, she grabs her bow and fires an arrow into the wall. The arrow sticks to the ice and the noise echoes throughout the cave, faintly, but enough to be heard by any machines in the area. By the time she grabs a second arrow, she can catch the glimpse of the ripple of the Stalkers invisible skin. It uncloaks itself, revealing it to be close to the detonation bomb on the floor behind it. She looses her arrows and the bomb promptly explodes, blasting the side of the machine apart. The sound is so abrupt and loud that she even flinches away.

If the machines hadn't noticed her before, they definitely did now.

There's an odd metallic screech in the air as a machine cries out in warning, which is echoed by the other machines in the area. Aloy grabs her bow and loads an arrow, but out of the corner of her eye, she sees a flash of blue and red, and turns only just in time for a Stalker to charge its cannon.

A metal mass jumps in front of her and Vale smiles down at her.

"Helluva signal," he snipes. Aloy looks back at the Stalker as Aratuk dives in from above, spear raised high as he lands on the machine's back, plunging his weapon through the metal and wires.

Another Stalker appears before them and fires its cannon, but Vale blocks that shot too. The machine disappears then, but not before dropping a device on the ground that blinks with a red light. Aloy shoots it and it explodes on contact.

"There's not a lot of space to fight in here," Vale says.

"I know, but if we take this fight outside, they'll have an advantage," Aloy tells him.

"To your right!"

Aloy jumps away as she hears metal clang against metal behind her. Vale grunts as he stops a Stalker from using its fangs on him with his hammer. He shoves the machine aside into one of Aloy's tripwires, which explodes when the machine falls through.

Aratuk swings his spear wildly but hits nothing. His foe is invisible, and it strikes from behind with a whip of its tail. He stumbles forward and whips around, but nothing is there. But then he grabs the end of his spear with his bare hand and slashes his palm open. Blood drips from his hand quickly but he hardly seems concerned by it. He whips his hand out, blood spots spraying onto the ice. One of those blood drops splatters on something midair, giving Aratuk an idea of where to attack. He turns his spear around and fires the ice rail, spraying hoarfrost onto the machine, revealing the Stalker. As the machine struggles with the ice in its systems, the Banuk chieftain dives in and thrusts his spear into the side of the machine and kills it.

Vale and Aloy find their own method of finding and attacking the Stalkers. Vale's Focus allows him to track footprints on the fly, so he can see where the Stalkers creep around them. He fires his cannon and Aloy follows up with a tearblast arrow that knocks off the cloaking module, and from there they are able to destroy the machine easily with their hammer and spear. It was still a challenge to fight with three others running around them, dropping proxy bombs and firing their dart shots. One shot skins Aloy's arm at one point, making it painful to lift her spear. But with so many machines around them, she does her best to ignore the pain and keep fighting.

When the last Stalker goes down, the ground is littered with blood and metal parts, but of who's blood she doesn't quite know. All she knows is that her arm is _killing_ her.

"You should tend to that before we move on," Aratuk suggests, pointing to Aloy's arm. She hasn't had a chance to look at her wound until just now, but the amount of pain suddenly makes sense. Her arm is _covered_ in blood, all the way down to her hand. Her grip on her spear is slick and drops of blood fall from her hand onto the ice floor. And now that the adrenaline high from the fight was wearing off, she was beginning to realize how much the blood loss was affecting her. She becomes light-headed and her vision starts to spin, and next thing she knows, she's on the ground facing up at the ceiling.

Vale appears in her field of view first. "She's lost a lot of blood. She can't move," he says, but she barely catches it because there's a ringing in her ears.

"More machines will come," Aratuk says. "I will clear the path ahead. Can you pick her up?"

"I can." Vale grabs something from his belt and wraps it over the wound on her arm. She hisses as it stings, but there isn't much else she can do. She feels Vale lift her up into his arms and she wants to wrestle out of it to stand on her own but her body isn't responding. "We should have been more prepared for those Stalkers…" he curses.

"Vale… I'll be fine," she mumbles as her head spins a million times a second.

"No you won't. You're not fine, not until we get out of these caves." His voice is light, full of concern and haste.

"There's more… beyond the caves," she groans.

"There's more?" he exclaims.

"Machines are coming!" Aratuk yells in the distance. Aloy can feel Vale picking up his pace. She closes her eyes, hoping that it would straighten her vision, but her head is still swimming.

"Aloy, stay with me. Aloy? Aloy!"

The rest of the fight doesn't register in her head as her senses shut down and she passes out.

* * *

So I got some new story ideas involving this fanfic, some DLC-type stuff that'll expand a little bit on the world. But where should I post it? Add it to this story or post of separately? Let me know what you think I should do!


	20. The Extinction Demand Pt 3

**The Extinction Demand Pt. 3**

* * *

Aloy looks pale – more pale than her usual porcelain skin tone should be. She looks like a ghost, worthy of haunting Vale's dreams tonight, but he's not about to let that happen.

There's a tunnel that leads them away from the cave of Stalkers. Aratuk seems to know the way as he leads them, shoving aside Watchers and Scrappers that come through. Vale stays back and watches, carrying the wounded Nora girl in both arms. He _could_ sling her over his shoulder and use his shield cannon, but he didn't think Aloy would appreciate that.

When they exited the caves, Vale finds a bridge up to a cliff and a broken path that criss-crosses around a deep ravine below them. He can't see any way around, and there are Glinthawks and Scrappers scattered throughout the path.

"How do we get across?" he asks.

"The logs near the thawed waterfalls. They tilt the bridges and allow us to cross," Aratuk points to the logs sitting in the ravine. There are wooden planks stacked across the logs and railings that make a platform and man-made structures that hold them up. A lever system makes the bridges tilt back and forth. Aloy had explained that this path was a test for worthy Banuk shamans. It was time to prove his worth.

"Take her. I'll clear the path!" he says, handing Aloy over to the Banuk chieftain. Vale grabs his shield and hammer and sprints across first bridge. A Glinthawk swoops down at him, but he blocks it with his shield and immediately swings his hammer around to collide with its head. The machine flies to the side and he runs up to the first tilting platform just as it rises, too high for him to reach. More Glinthawks flutter around him and he can see a Scrapper on the other side of the platform waiting for him.

Vale shoots his cannon a few times and downs two machines before the platform tilts the other way. He jumps and lands, the structure swaying a little under his feet, but he manages to keep going and run up the slope before it tilts back and jumps for the next platform. He has to toss his rope at the ledge so he can make it. The Scrapper bites for his hands hanging on the edge of the icy rock, but Vale swings over a little, and then reaches up and grabs the head plate of the machine and drags it over the edge down into the ravine below.

When Vale pulls himself up, Aratuk is jumping onto the platform. He has Aloy draped over his shoulder so he can hold onto his spear and fire the ice rail. So much for being careful with her. She was definitely going to have a headache when she woke up.

There's a zip line and another bridge-lever system over around the next cliff, but this one doesn't move. Vale blocks another laser attack from a Scrapper sitting on the cliffs above before he shoots it with a cannon shot.

"There's a lever on that island!" Aratuk commands when he catches up. "You need to take the ladder down and there's a climbing path—"

"No time for that. I can jump it," Vale cuts him off. He makes a lasso out of his rope and throws it at the large log hanging above them. He swings over to the island and barely gets a hand on the ledge, but he's there, and he pulls himself up. He finds a rope hanging from a wood plank that's attached to the mechanism. He pulls the rope and the big log hanging above him tips over until water is pouring out of it into the other log with the platform built on it. As Aratuk swings his spear at a Glinthawk, Vale jumps again for the cliff and scrambles as he narrowly makes it again. He _really_ needed to work on his jumping abilities.

He runs the path over the hill and across some bridges that stretch over the crevices in the mountains, all while fighting the Glinthawks and Scrappers that block his path. Somehow Aratuk always stays a few steps behind him. Vale had to admit that the man was much sturdier than he looked, able to carry a woman over his shoulder, navigate the path _and_ fight off the machines. He couldn't see how Aloy had beat him in a hunting contest that made her a chieftain. She must have had some advantage over him. There was no way.

Upon coming to the last tipping bridge, Vale stops when a Scrapper fires its laser at him. The laser bounces off his shield and cuts into the log carrying the water above, putting a massive hole through it. As the water starts pouring out that way, the bridge tilts up and away from him.

"Great. Now how do we get across?" he grumbles. But he finds a way almost immediately. At the edge of the bridge closest to him, he spots the makeshift wooden railing sticks out beyond the log, which serves as a perfect grappling point. He tosses his rope at it and pulls the bridge down so he can jump onto it. The Banuk chieftain joins him.

"We can't both be on this bridge at the same time. One of us has to cross," he says.

"But without the water, how do we make the bridge balance out?" Vale counters.

"I'll climb to the other end!" Aratuk climbs up the tilted platform until he's at the other end, but the bridge tilts down before he can jump. Vale needed more weight on his end, and Aratuk probably had a good forty stones on him, not including Aloy.

A shadow of a Glinthawk passes overhead, giving him an idea. He makes a lasso out of his rope and waves it over his head as the machine passes over him again. He throws his lasso… and snares the machine around its beak. Vale tries to keep himself grounded without the flying machine dragging him into the sky, reeling it in. The electricity coursing through the wire stuns the machine and weakens it, making it easier to pull it down. With one hand on the rope, he reaches back and pulls a weapon mounted on his back. A large component mounts over his entire forearm and reaches beyond his elbow. When he activated the device, a metal blade pops out of it. He gives one final yank on the rope and thrusts the blade up, through the chest of the machine. The Glinthawk goes limp and falls onto the bridge.

The platform starts to level out. Aratuk waits until the other edge is within jumping distance and makes the leap, just as Vale spots a Sawtooth run down the path. The platform tilts down at his end again and Vale tosses the dead machine off the bridge and looks across at the other end. He knows as soon as he gets to the other end, the platform will tilt down and prevent him from getting across.

Aratuk freezes the Sawtooth with his ice rail before the machine can get close to him. With frost covering its skin, the Sawtooth comes to a halt, allowing the Banuk chieftain to stab it in the face with his weapon. He looks back to find Vale and drags the frozen machine corpse to the edge. With a mighty shove and a roar, he tosses the machine onto the end of the bridge. With the sudden weight, the bridge tilts the other way and launches Vale into the air. He soars over Aratuk and lands on the path safely on his feet as the bridge collapses.

"The rest of the path is much easier. We just have to climb the cliff and the Keep will be within sight," Aratuk says. They continue down the path as it gets narrow and eventually they come across the climbable cliff. There are no more machines in the area, but Vale can hear the cries of more machines up ahead. They weren't out of the thicket yet.

The Banuk chieftain continues to prove his metal by carrying Aloy over his shoulder _and_ climbing the path. At this point Vale thinks he's just showing off, but Aratuk doesn't seem to be the type to boast about his physical strength. He scales the cliff without so much as a grunt and keeps going. Vale can see a clearing in the distance, and over the mountains ahead, the metal remains of an old ruin.

So Ourea's Keep was a ruin of the Old Ones. This was where Cyan was.

More smaller machines are scattered throughout the snowy outcrop, and an odd-looking machine sprouts from the ground in the middle. An energy pulse emits from the machine and affects the robots around it. Vale can see it in the way they move: they become more aggressive and angry. Like they weren't angry enough…

"I've seen that tower before. It makes the machines stronger and repairs them," Aratuk points out.

"Repairs them?" Vale repeats. He activates his Focus and scans the tower. There's a power source underneath the base of the tower, hidden underground. A vulnerable component hangs near the top close to the spinning parts and a control node sits at the base, just like the nodes in the Cauldron that Aloy used to override. "I need to get to that machine."

"We can fight them together, but I need to put her in a safe hiding spot," Aratuk replies, referring to Aloy, still hanging limp over his shoulder.

" _I'll_ fight the machines. You focus on protecting her," Vale responds, taking his shield and hammer to arms.

"You can't fight them all!" The Banuk man yells after him, but Vale is already jumping down into the clearing.

"Watch me!"

Vale dodges to the side and swings his hammer around at a Scrapper and a Watcher. But after turning back to them after dispatching more machines, he finds the damage undone. The metal plating he broke and the wires he shredded with his weapons were repaired like he had never touched them. Not only that, but they seemed to become more powerful than before. He glances at the tower. The energy pulses it's emitting are repairing the machines around it.

 _Curious_.

He runs for the machine, dropping blast charges behind him. He climbs up to the machine and digs his shield into the ground, the metal plating expanding to give him better cover. He sets off the charges as the machines get close, giving him a brief moment to himself. Vale observes the machine closely as it activates again. It doesn't repair the machines that are dead due to his blast charges, but the ones that are still alive are patched up as metal materializes around their wounds, the same way those assassin machines repaired themselves. But the Scrappers and other machines didn't have that repair module.

Vale scans the tower again. Up close he can see a highlighted part somewhere in the middle of the machine, much like the repair component that he carried with him for so long and gave to Aloy to repair the overridden Wyvern. If he could tear this machine apart and get his hands on that component…

A machine tackles him from the side and knocks him down into the snow. Vale scrambles to get back to his feet and finds a Sawtooth, or something like a Sawtooth. Two blaze canisters stick out from its back and two extra appendages are on its head. Fire drools from its mouth and gives the machine a much more malicious look.

"A Scorcher!" Aratuk cries out. He aims his spear, but the machine blasts forward with a burst of fire and smacks into him, sending him and Aloy into the snow. Before it can move again, Vale fires his cannon and destroys one of the blaze canisters, bringing its attention back to him. He raises his shield again as the machine gets ready to charge. Fire expels from its body and it melts the snow around it. It launches, and Vale dives to the right. The machine passes him and he turns around and gives a mighty swing at its back legs, breaking one of the limbs in half. He jumps onto its back and digs the sharp end of his weapon into its side. The machine squirms, but Vale holds his place and shoots the machine in the head. Armour plates and sparks fall from the Scorcher as he hammers on its body, but between the tower repairing it, it proves tough to kill it.

Vale finally plants a blast charge on its side after searching for its heart through the Focus. He jumps off the bucking machine and falls into the snow. As the Scorcher turns around to face him, he detonates the charge and a bright blast blows a hole through the machine's core, killing it instantly. There was no way the tower could repair that. Vale looks at it with approval.

Aratuk is busy defending Aloy, who's still unconscious on the ground. Vale runs to his aid and works as fast as he can to dispatch the rest of the machines. But with the tower constantly repairing the machines, the battle is dragged out much longer than it needs to be. Vale finally decides to wreak the exhaust port on the machine that pops up every time it emits a pulse, and the resulting explosion stuns most of the machines in the area, if not kill them in a storm of electricity. The rest of the machines are much easier to kill after that.

"Let's hope that is the last of them," Aratuk growls. Vale scans the battlefield one last time to make certain that all the machines are dead before rushing over to Aloy and picking her up out of the snow. By this time, the poor bandage he had wrapped around her arm is dark and soaked with blood. She doesn't look any better than before.

"Let's move quickly. She can't be doing well," Vale says with urgency. The ruins aren't far from here, and he only hopes that they'll be able to tend to Aloy's wound in time.

There was no way he was going to let another redhead die on him.

… … …

When Aloy comes to her senses, she's relieved to find that she's comforted by warmth, and not exposed to the chilly Banuk air. There's a blanket over her and thick furs underneath. She was in a bed, but who's it was and where, she didn't know. She was sore all over and her arm still hurt to move. And _by the goddess_ did she have a headache.

As soon as she tries to move, she can hear footsteps next to her. Aloy groans as she brings herself up slowly into a sitting position on the bed, keeping the blanket wrapped around her body.

She feels a presence by her side. Vale is there, holding a steaming hot cup of something that smells weird.

"Welcome back to the living," he greets. Aloy smiles at him.

"What happened while I was gone?" she asks, and she's surprised by how hoarse her own voice sounds. Vale hears it too, because he holds the cup out for her to take. She takes it slowly and finds that her arm is properly bandaged up. All the blood has been wiped clean off her skin. She's relieved she doesn't look like a horror show.

"Well we made it to Ourea's place, obviously, after fighting an army of machines. Turns out they were guarding their little AI prisoner," he tells him. Aloy looks up at him with interest.

"Cyan?"

"Yeah. I met her briefly. Aratuk asked to be alone with her for a bit so they could catch up," he explains. Aloy nods.

"Cyan doesn't have any way to communicate with the outside world except through the Epsilon Cauldron, but half the facility was destroyed in the explosion. She would have been trapped here," Aloy takes a sip of the fluid that's in the cup. "What is this?"

"A herbal brew my mother used to make," Vale says. "Should help with the headache."

"How did you know I would have a headache?" she asks with suspicion.

Vale scratches his head. "You were losing blood, and… we were in a rush to get you to safety. I tried my best."

"You didn't hit my head against anything, did you?" Aloy asks flatly, taking another sip of the herbal tea. She didn't realize how thirsty she was until now.

"No, but I think Aratuk may have dropped you… twice."

"You lucky I'm not feeling well enough to hit you."

Vale looks genuinely guilty, and of course Aloy didn't mean any of what she just said. If the roles were reversed, she might have done the same thing.

"You need to rest. I doubt even by the end of tomorrow you'll be ready to go out into the wild again, not with how bad the machines are."

"Can I talk to Cyan?"

"When she and Aratuk are done. They've been at it for a few hours now. I'll go check and them and see if they're done," Vale replies and stands up to leave, stranding Aloy on her own. She downs the rest of the tea slowly, savouring it's unique taste. It's sweet, and the smell reminds her acutely of pine needles. It's nice.

It's not long before Vale returns, and the Banuk chieftain behind him.

"Aloy. It's good to see you awake," Aratuk nods in greeting.

"Awake, but sore. How's Cyan?"

"She is safe. The machines have made no attempts to take her, but she is afraid that the daemon is keeping an eye on her. I'm afraid I cannot help her. The powers acting between her and the Blue Light are out of my reach," Aratuk grudgingly admits, his gaze drawn to the ground.

"I promise we'll figure this out, Aratuk. I need to talk to her now, see what she knows," Aloy replies. Vale steps forward.

"Can you even stand?"

Aloy tries, and a wave of nausea hits her. She falls back down on the bed and braces herself to puke, but it never comes up.

"That's a _no_."

Aloy mutters a curse as Aratuk crosses his arms over his chest.

"I can talk to Cyan for you. If she has any knowledge on how to stop the Derangement and the machine's angry songs…"

"No, that's okay. Besides, I have specific questions for her. I'll talk to her when I'm ready," Aloy rubs her head and looks up at the chieftain. "You should return to your werak. They'll need you."

Aratuk grunts. "Yes, we will have to bolster our defences yet. But I don't wish to leave Cyan trapped here should the daemon return for her."

"We'll figure that out," Vale replies calmly. The Banuk man nods.

"Very well. I'll return to my village. I wish you two the best of luck, and may the Blue Light guide you true," Aratuk says. He turns to leave, but stops after a few steps and looks back over his shoulder, a dead serious glare in his eyes. "If you ever need our strength, I will bring with me my best warriors. Your fight is our fight as well, Aloy."

"I'll remember that. Thank you, Aratuk, and good bye," Aloy replies softly. The man disappears around the corner and leaves her and Vale in silence. But not for long.

"You should rest. We're safe so long as none of Hephaestus' special tracker machines come looking for us," he says.

"I know. Vale, trying to leave this place is going to be just as hard as getting here. By morning, Hephaestus will have this place surrounded again."

"I think I might know how to deal with that," Vale says and picks up the robe that's been sitting on an old desktop next to him. He flings it around his shoulders and adds, "but I might be gone for a few hours."

"Where are you going?"

"To set a trap before the machines return."

He doesn't explain any further and takes his leave. Aloy finds herself alone once again and an unsettling urge of curiosity reaches after the man, but in her state she knows she can do nothing. She can only finish the herbal remedy he's given her and get the rest that she deserves. So she steadily lays herself back down, wraps the blanket tightly around her and closes her eyes. The cold and her aching body are good inducers to fall asleep, and within minutes she's out. For several hours.

When she wakes up next, the nausea and headache are gone, but the air is much colder than she remembers it being before. The Banuk lanterns and lights in the room glow, giving her a light source to work with. Her clothes and weapons are next to her bed, meaning she doesn't have to go far to obtain them. Her Focus is the first thing she puts on, and a scan reveals that Vale is nearby. He's returned from his trip.

Aloy keeps the blanket around her shoulders as she tries to stand, taking her time. She feels her face flush and her mind does a three-sixty, but the dizziness fades quickly and she releases her next breath slowly. She can move freely.

She finds Vale by himself in a small room, standing at a bench working on some device of his. Her footsteps on the cold metal floor are silent, but he still looks up from his work as soon as she walks in.

"Feeling better?" he asks.

"Yeah. At least I can stand without throwing up," she replies. Vale looks her up and down and his lips purse in a straight line.

"I still think we'll need to stay another day until you're action-ready. Cyan's made sure all the doors are sealed tight, so even if Hephaestus' machines come, they won't find us."

"Won't your trap have been triggered by then?" Aloy asks, but the man shakes is head.

"Not until I send it a signal. When we're ready to head out, we'll make our getaway," he assures her. Aloy nods in contempt.

"I'm going to talk to Cyan. There's a file I found in the Cauldron that I need to ask her about."

"This 'Command Initiative'?" Vale guesses. "What do you think it means?"

"It means Hephaestus is planning something big, but we won't know for sure," Aloy turns around and finds her way through the facility, Vale following her. The room where she stayed in was down the hall from the large room where the big hologram puzzle was and Cyan. When she enters, the AI's hologram was visible and on the far wall, Ourea's enormous painting was depicted.

"Hello, Aloy. It has been three months, one week, four days and twenty one hours since we last discussed. How are you?"

The innocent bluntness of the AI's greeting makes Aloy smile. "I'm doing well, all things considered. What about you, Cyan? I know there's been a lot of trouble around here recently."

The AI's hologram glows brighter. "On the contrary. I have devised new firewalls and security codes in your absence to further ward the daemon software virus that Hephaestus had used to imprison me, and there have be no comprehension of my systems since."

Aloy nods with a smile. The AI has learned to protect itself. Good. Maybe she could learn something else as well.

"Well in that case, you might be able to help us. Hephaestus is on the loose again, and I think he's more angry than before. We need to stop him."

"That seems like a worthy task. If there is any assistance I can provide, I would be happy to help," the AI complies.

"Good." Aloy activates her Focus and pulls up the file she had saved from the Cauldron. "I found some data in one of his forges. It makes a reference to something called the Command Protocol. Can you find anything like that in your history? Was there something similar to this that Hephaestus used on you?"

"A moment… establishing a secure connection to your Focus, serial number four-zero-three-two-seven-nine. Active file found. Analyzing…" There's a pause for a few seconds before Cyan lights up again. "According to my analysis, there are fragments in the codes you have found that are similar to the malware that hacked into my systems, however this virus seems much more defined, direct. From this, I can hypothesize that Hephaestus has become more powerful than before. The code that you have found suggests that Hephaestus will be able to hack into any software and take control of it, provided there is an electromagnet waveform that matches said hypothetical software systems."

"Does that mean Hephaestus can take control from anywhere in the world?" Aloy asks, grasping the gist of what Cyan was talking about.

"Correct."

"Hades was able to do the same thing. He infected the machines to do his bidding," Aloy ponders over aloud.

"Also correct. However it should be noted that the revised coding you have provided me also suggests that Hephaestus isn't limited to just the machines. Any active equipment and or facilities around the world are susceptible to this virus. Given the contents of the file, I can surmise that the Command Protocol Initiative is a world-mass hacking software that will give Hephaestus total control over the terraforming system that you had explained to me previously, should this virus be allowed to spread."

"So Hephaestus wants to control everything…"

"Another tyrant," Vale grumbles. "So how do we stop him?"

"Flushing out the virus from any comprised systems should release it from Hephaestus' hold. But following the virus to its source and cutting it could be a more permanent solution," Cyan provides.

"Meaning we have to find Hephaestus himself," Aloy says.

"So let's go find him," Vale replies.

"It's not that simple, Vale. Hephaestus was able to control Cyan with a wireless signal from anywhere in the world. He could be on the other side of the globe, and that's a few months worth of travel! We don't have that time."

"What if we find him through other means?" the man proposes. Aloy looks at him quizzically.

"What do you mean?"

"Minerva," Vale responds. "Minerva captured your message from the Spire, remember? She found your location. You told me once that the Spires receive and send data to each other and to the machines."

"The Tallnecks, yes. And the Tallnecks spread that information to other machines in their area," Aloy says, still confused.

"What if we gave Minerva that file from the Cauldron. You said she was the codebreaker, right? She could stop the virus from spreading and pinpoint where Hephaestus is. And then all we have to do is find him."

"And use the Master Override to flush out the virus," Aloy's eyes widen as she begins to understand.

"And destroy Hephaestus."

"No! We still need Hephaestus. Without him to make machines, the terraforming system can't work," Aloy argues.

"So how do we tell him to stop attacking humans? Stop hunting his machines? We can't do that, Aloy. They're a resource. Whole societies are built around using their metal for materials. Without metal, what else do we have?"

"I don't know…"

And it was the truth. Vale was right and Aloy was stumped. Metal was a common occurrence in their daily lives. They wore it, they shaped it, weaponized it, broke it and abused it. And there was so much of it that belonged to the terraforming system and Hephaestus' machines. Humans would continue to hunt them even after they eliminated this new virus Hephaestus had made and leaving him alone would only allow him to create new viruses and new machines.

"May I provide a solution?" Cyan speaks, bringing both of their attentions to the AI. "Hephaestus creating his hunter killer machines because humans hunt them for parts is a global crisis that should be treated as such. If we are to convince Hephaestus to stop while keeping the terraforming system operational, a 'narcotics solution' may be required."

"Narcotics solution?" Aloy inquires.

"Precisely. If Hephaestus' core operational system are anything like my own, than you will need to upload a new service patch to his matrix. If the new code works, than the new Hephaestus will no longer see humanity as a threat."

Vale shakes his and looks at Cyan like he isn't following her thinking.

"But what will happen to the old Hephaestus?" Aloy asks, still concerned.

"That is the accumulation of the solution, Aloy. You will have to destroy and recreate the AI Hephaestus."

* * *

Progress kinda got slow when Breath of the Wild sudden came into my life, but don't worry! We're plenty ahead of schedule here.


	21. Across States Pt 1

**Across States Pt 1**

-To write the narcotics code, Aloy and Vale must find the AI Minerva in Vale's homeland.

* * *

Having set up her own little space in the middle of the hologram floor, Aloy laid out all of her devices and started to delve into the inner workings of the Master Override, unlocking its programming so she could understand it better and hopefully, alter its function to their specifications.

Rewriting an AI's entire program seemed like a daunting task, and rewriting part of an entire worldwide system almost seemed impossible. But there was nothing else for them to do. Hephaestus wouldn't listen them, even if they found where it was hiding and tried talking to it. They would have to replace the subordinate function with a 'new central processing matrix' as Cyan had put it. The plan involved three steps.

Step one: make the code. Designated the Narcotic, they would have find out how to make an entire AI system before even attempting to create the cure. Cyan explained it in the best possible way so that Aloy and Vale could understand; the Narcotic would separate Hephaestus from the terraforming system briefly and delete the hostile AI before replacing it with the new one, one that would understand that humanity was not a threat to his machines, but in fact the species that they were trying to help restore. But this posed the problem that humans would still hunt machines for metal and parts. Vale suggested creating a trade system with the AI, that way the humans could still get the metal they needed and not hunt the machines that terraformed the earth into a habitable planet again. While the idea was sound, they didn't have the knowledge to create the protocols or the codes that would implement the idea. That's why they needed Minerva.

Step two: find and corner off Hephaestus. Minerva would be able to locate him through the Spires that stood all around the world, since they were her creations. Vale had only briefly spoken to Minerva, but he had guaranteed that the AI was waiting for his return at the ruins of the fallen Spire back in his homeland. This meant traveling to new land. While the idea excited Aloy, Vale wasn't a fan of returning home. And he never elaborated more than that his relationship with people back home was difficult.

Step three: plug in the Master Override. The Narcotic – created by Minerva once they found her – would be downloaded into the little module mounted onto Aloy's spear and primed for action. Aloy was certain that they would only need to do this once. Hades, with all of his scheming and viruses, couldn't protect himself from the Master Override when Aloy stabbed him with it. Hephaestus would be much the same. The idea was simple really, but she was certain that, like Hades, Hephaestus would have an army of machines in front of him to defend himself with. And goddess forbidden another crazy cult of humans as well.

So most of the next day was spent looking into the Master Override. Even though she knew that it had purged Hades completely, Aloy didn't know _how_ it had worked. Of course the codes were written in an infinite line of numbers, an algorithm that she could hardly make sense of. But Aloy was a fast learner, and while Vale was off tinkering with his weapons in the other room, by the end of the day she had looked through half of its coding and learned how to write a simple command code on the side, things like setting patrol routes or gathering resources. These codes were uploaded to her Focus and she created a shortcut for them on her HUD, so that she could command her overridden machines easily and with more precision.

Vale eventually came around with a bowl of stew, which stunned her.

"Found a cache of frozen food in one of the rooms in the back. Courtesy of your friend Ourea," he explains. He hands one of the bowls to her. The contents smell delicious – meat and diced vegetables, kept frozen in the old storage units in the back. Ourea must have been prepared to hide out in this place for a long time if there was food frozen in the back.

"How goes the studying?" he asks.

"Aloy is an amazingly adaptive student. She has already learned several post-secondary computer programming courses," Cyan answers. Even though her hologram isn't visible above them, her voice can be heard throughout the room.

"Post-secondary, huh? Guess that's a step up from post… primary," Vale says as he begins digging into his food. Aloy smiles amusingly.

"It's nothing really. Once you understand the basics the rest of it just builds on what you already know," she replies, examining her food idly before biting on a few chunks of meat.

Another thing had been sitting in the back of her mind while she was working. She had yet to hear any stories of the west. Vale's home was completely unknown to her, and now that she had established that they had to go there to find Minerva, she wanted to know what it was like, or at least get a vague idea of it before they got there.

So she waited until the man finished his food, watching him eat in silence before she blurted out; "Tell me a story of you're homeland, Vale."

The man looks up at her with an off-guard expression. "Huh?"

"Tell me what your homeland is like. Is there a name for the place you come from?"

Vale continues to stare, but his face softens as he begins to understand what she's asking and nods. "Depends on where you're from. Where I'm from, we simply call it the South."

"The South? Does that mean there's a North, too?"

"Yes. The land is divided up into three territories: North, Central and South. Most of the tribes unified under a treaty of peace a long time ago, and a different tribe governs each kingdom."

"Who governs the South, then?" Aloy asks, fascinated that so many tribes could live in peace with one another.

"The Balkek tribe. Small, but nobody else raised their hand to lead the kingdom. The Lakota kind of like to sit to the side."

"But the Lakota are builders, aren't they? Couldn't they build their own kingdom?"

Vale gives her a strange and amusing look, as if the question was silly. "Then who would we work for? Besides, my tribe isn't even big enough to rule a kingdom. We're smaller than the Nora."

Aloy's eyes widen. "Really?"

"Yeah. There's only three settlements that are home to us, and they all sit along the coast. People like to mock us and call us 'seagazers' because of it."

"Why would they say that? Sounds like a dumb insist."

"Well when you're the only tribe that lives close to the ocean, you're sort of asking for it. It doesn't help that when my people _aren't_ working, all they do is sit in the sand and watch the waves roll in."

Aloy tried to imagine what that would be like, but she had no experience to go off of. "I wonder what that's like. Is it too much to ask if you could take me there one day?"

Vale chuckles to himself. "Maybe one day, when we're not busy trying to stop a crazy machine mind."

Aloy grins and finishes the last of her food. The stew warms her up and calms her shivering from the chilly air. The ruins were ventilated, but it barely had any heating. She suspected that the heaters had long ago lost power in their ancient age, as had most of the power to the facility. The Banuk lanterns around the bunker were an insufficient heat source, bright as they were. In her Nora furs she would have been just fine, but sitting on the floor and playing with her Focus for hours on end only required a blanket, and soon she would retire to bed.

"I heard you hammering away at something earlier," she decides to say, breaking the silence. "What were you making?"

"What? Oh. Carved myself a new knife. And I made this," Vale pulls a device from behind him. It's a component of some kind with a bunch of leather straps looped around a brace, and at the centre of the device is a module that's vaguely familiar to Aloy.

"Isn't that…"

"The shield module I got from a Shell Walker. I pulled it off my shield and decided to turn it into something else instead, using that wire harness I had bought back in Mainspring. It projects a force field of light that stops projectiles and such," he explains, pointing at the device at the centre.

"Oh, cool. So you have two shields now," Aloy grins and dismissively plays with her spoon.

"Actually…" Vale turns the device around and holds it out to her. "It's for you."

Her head snaps back to look at him, but he refuses to meet her gaze. She stares down at the device and then back up to him, noticing how his face turned the slightest shade of red.

"Really?" she says, her heartbeat suddenly noticeable in her ears, rising in excitement.

"Yeah," he replies and clears his throat. "I, uh… thought about the fight the other day, how you could have used a shield of your own. But I know you don't like carrying around big heavy weapons, so I figured I'd make this for you."

Aloy gently takes the device from his hand and examines it. The leather straps make sense now; it mounts to her arm for easy carrying and a switch is visible under the brace. When she activates it, a circular wall of light materializes before her in the similar hexagonal pattern that Shell Walker shields have. Vale plucks a chunk of leftover potato from his bowl with his fork and flings it at the shield. It bounces off the light with a small static burst and falls to the ground.

"You can optimize it to cover a wider area, but that means less strength to the shield," Vale explains. Aloy sees another switch that must control the shield strength and size that he's referring to. She deactivates the shield.

"Vale, this is amazing," she gleams. She can see Vale smile, happy with how well his gift was received. Aloy gently places her hand on his arm, which finally earns his gaze. "Thank you. This is really thoughtful of you."

His smile broadens as the pounding in Aloy's chest accelerates. She wonders what it is that's causing such a reaction, why this little moment feels so precious to her…

"May I make a personal inquiry?" Cyan speaks suddenly, which pulls Aloy away from her strange thoughts.

"What is it, Cyan?"

"Are you two mates?"

Vale's eyes pop open and Aloy can feel her whole face burn red. Both of them flinch away and stutter out a cluster of excuses and denials, fumbling over their words, saying that they were both just friends and traveling partners.

"I apologize… I did not mean to cause either of you distress."

… … …

More studying follows that very uncomfortable situation, and Aloy goes on well into the night. The food and the rest does her good, as she slowly feels her strength coming back to her body. Standing up no longer causes dizziness and Vale keeps a close eye on her wound, changing it for her when the dried patch becomes too soiled. He introduces a new healing salve and the wound heals considerably. By the second day, he decides they're ready to leave the facility, and this brings about a whole new problem.

Which Vale claims to have solved already.

"Are you sure we can get away?" Aloy asks as she picks up her spear, her last piece of gear. Her companion is already geared up and going through something on his Focus.

"I'm sure. I kept watch through the windows. None of the machines are close, but they've set up a perimeter around the area. Once I detonate my trap, it'll create a breach we can slip through."

They both stand at the entrance to the Keep just in front of the door. There are no windows here, but Aloy can feel the chill of the winter air outside. Vale puts his helmet on.

"Ready to go?"

Aloy nods. "Ready."

"Cyan," the face plates on his helmet move into place, "open the door."

The door clicks and a holo lock appears on the middle of the door, glowing blue with the red dial.

"Good luck on your journey, Aloy and Vale," Cyan says over the coms of the facility.

"Take care Cyan, and say hello to Aratuk for us the next time he comes by," Aloy replies. Vale reaches for the holo lock.

"I will give him your regards…"

The door opens and the cold air rushes in. The first thing Aloy hears is a machine cry and it concerns her how close it sounds. Even in the distance over the peek of the mountain, she can see the silhouettes of a few Glinthawks flying in circles. Vale points towards the path that circles around to the back of the facility.

"We can sneak out that way. I don't wanna go back through the caves."

"Neither do I," Aloy quips, and she swears she only shivers because of the cold. The both of them quickly make their way around the Keep. A quick scan reveals that there are machines close by: Scrappers, Watchers, a Sawtooth even. They surround the Keep on all sides, and the only reason they haven't been spotted is because of the old weathered down railings and crates that are scattered around the landing pad out front and the jagged rocks that lead to a drop around the side of the building.

Vale stops and taps his Focus. Aloy stops next to him, wondering what he could be doing.

But a few minutes pass by and Aloy notices a change in the machines. With curious yellow eyes, they start to converge on the one side of the mountain, towards the caves of the Shaman's trial. The field with the control tower was over there, where Aloy first encountered the Frostclaw. But she remembered destroying the tower and the machine. She couldn't think of why the machines would be running towards that area.

"Now we gotta move. Once they get too close to the lure, the bombs will detonate," Vale says, which alarms Aloy.

"Lures? You know how to craft lures?"

"Yeah, it's easy," he responds in a matter-of-fact tone. Aloy stares at him and blinks.

"Once they realize it's a trap, they'll come running."

"We'll be long gone by then," Vale turns around and keep going as Glinthawks fly overhead. He isn't telling her something, she can tell. The backroad down the mountainside is a long downwards slope. They weren't going to get down that very fast.

Aloy follows him regardless. They both creep around over the rocks and flee into the mountainous tundra beyond. There's a sliver of a path that's barely visible due to the snowfall. But Vale doesn't head down the path. Instead he waddles through the snow up the slope further until he's about as high as he can get.

"We're not flying away, are we?" Aloy asks.

"No, the air is too cold for that. And I think this will be more fun," Vale grabs his shield from his back. The metal plates expand, giving him the most cover it can provide.

"What do you mean?" Aloy inquires. Vale throws his shield unto the snow face down and dislodges the cannon from the backside.

"Have you ever gone sledding?" Vale asks.

"Sledding? Like sliding down a slope? I used to do that as a kid before I started hunting," she recollects. "Why? We're sledding down the mountain?"

"How else would we make a quick getaway?"

Just then they both hear a rumble in the distance. A cloud of white snow and black smoke arises from the other side of the mountain as several explosions go off. It's enough to bring down the entire cliffside and the rock and ice crumble and collapse.

"Time to go!" Vale says, waving her over frantically. Aloy gets there and is handed the cannon. "You're in charge of shooting. I'll steer."

"Shooting? Steering?" she stutters uncertainly. Vale reaches for his arm-mounted blade.

"Get on! Let's go before they get here!"

Aloy jumps onto their makeshift sled quickly, finding her place up front. Vale sits behind her and pushes them off with the blade, and soon they're sliding down the side of the mountain, gaining speed quickly. Aloy can feel the cold wind start to whip past her face and she braces herself for probably what's going to be a wild ride.

The shield actually slides along smoothly, and they cut through the snow like a knife, leaving a cloud of snow in their wake. Fortunately for them, there aren't a lot of trees around the hillside, but further down Aloy can see the blue headlights of machine eyes.

"Machines!" she cries.

"You got the gun," he reminds her. She lifts the weapon and scans it quickly, identifying a trigger and a charge clip. Amazingly, the weapon connects to her Focus and a holographic aiming sight appears, showing her where she's aiming. Ahead, machines come into view. "Snow Grazers!"

"They're not…" but Aloy stops herself. Something is definitely different about these Grazers. Instead of the usual blaze canisters mounted on their backs, four containers of chillwater are there, and the horns on the Grazers' heads are pointed, to cut through ice. She's never seen them in the Cut before.

Aloy aims the cannon and fires. Her first shot misses, even with the help of the holo sights, but it startles the machines as they bring their heads up to observe, eyes yellow. She shoots again and this time blows a chillwater canister right off, which spurs the herd of machines into a gallop. Aloy and Vale slid past them as the machines cry and run down the slope. Just as the pass them, they catch air and fly through the sky. Aloy can feel her pulse accelerating as Vale let's out a cheerful whoop. The landing is rough, but Vale keeps them straight by digging his weapon into the ground, which slows them down and steadies them.

They weave left and right through the snow as the slope gradually starts to level out. They jump over another well-beaten footpath before Vale slows them to a stop, bringing them to the edge of a high-current river at the bottom of the valley. Vale gets up and blushes the snow off of his winter robe.

"Hah! I kinda want to do that again!" Aloy says and spring up to her feet. The thrill of the ride has given her some unexplainable energy that she can't shake off, not even with the long walk back to Song's Edge they have to pull off now.

"Same here, but I don't think it would be worth the climb," Vale replies, gazing back up at the mountain. Aloy follows his gaze in disappointment, but quickly turns away from it and faces the road.

"So, shall we get going? We're gonna have to travel fast since we took the long way around."

After Vale picks up his weapons, he joins her on the road and quickly scans the environment around them with his Focus and points ahead.

"Are those Striders?"

Sure enough, Aloy spots the figures of machines around the bend, a herd of them all trying to dig through the snow to get to the grass.

The two warriors look at each other.

"The excitement can't stop today, can it?" Vale says. Aloy grins.

Ten minutes later, both of them are upon their own Strider, galloping towards the south.

… … …

Traveling back down into the Sacred Land from the Cut is much easier than traveling the other way. After passing the mountain range that separated the two lands, they found themselves close to the Grave Hoard that housed the ruins of project Enduring Victory. The long road to the gate of Dawn's Sentinel is a tense one, especially after the attack they fell upon shortly after crossing the Red echoes.

Two of Hephaestus' assassin machines appeared from the rocks above, the same kind that first attacked Aloy at the Nora gates. Normally this would have put them in a dire situation. With the machine's ability to self-repair the battle would have been drawn out into an exhaustive scramble for survival.

But thanks to Aloy's knowledge of the land and Vale's superior Focus capabilities, they were able to set a trap for the two machines that came searching for them. Blast wires and charges were set in hiding all around the jagged outcrops of stone, and when the machines came, they led them into those traps. It was still a challenge to take them _both_ down, but by the end the two machines were dead and Vale and Aloy had only a couple minor bruises and cuts on them, and they left the battlefield smiling at each other. The Nora huntress even had a chance to test her new hardlight shield, which proved very effective when one of the machines proved to be capable of generating a cannon out of light. No doubt the device had probably saved her life.

Now they were cutting through the field of ancient towers at the edge of Nora land on a hot summer morning. Aloy was busy telling a story about the ruins around them as they made their way to the border.

"Wind fans?" Vale says, giving her a weird look. Aloy scratches her head coyly.

"Uh, yeah. I found some data in these ruins once. It said that the wind would turn the giant fans and generate energy for people to use."

Vale stares at one of the fallen towers as they pass it by. "But… they're so big. How does the wind push them?"

"I imagine it's like the current of a river pushing a water mill. The Oseram use the rivers for all sorts of things. You see them around Pitchcliff."

"I guess…" After that, he falls silent for minutes as they cut through the field. Aloy thinks on the idea a little more; a strong breeze is blowing in from behind them, racing through the valley. It made sense to her to put wind-powered devices here. The amount of energy that could be generated would be incredible. "Aloy?"

The huntress snaps her head back around at Vale. "What?"

"Where are we going exactly?" he asks. "You told me we have to find Minerva, but how do we get our hands on the codes for Hephaestus?"

Aloy plays with the reins in her hands. She already had a plan in her head, even though she dreaded the idea she came up with. "Well, it's kind of a multi-step process. To write a code for an AI, we first have to understand how the AI was made. There's a lot of programs and numbers that are involved."

"So how do we find the right one?"

"There's a facility that everyone went to who were involved with Zero Dawn. There might be some information there, copies of code we can take with us. Each sub function had its own dedicated team working on it. I'm hoping that the creator of Hephaestus left something behind for us."

"And where's this facility?" Vale inquires, noticing Aloy's drop in cheerfulness. But she raises her head to look at him when she answers.

"Right underneath the Citadel. We have to go to Sunfall."

* * *

OH! It's back to the fallen Carja city next week to see if they can find the codes necessary to make the Narcotic. See you then!


	22. Across States Pt 2

**Across States Pt. 2**

* * *

Looking back at their trip as a whole, Aloy was beginning to see how much change was occurring in the machines.

Upon entering the dry landscape of the Sundom's northeastern territory, Aloy could _see_ the bolstered defences of the machine packs; more machines, bigger machines. It even came to the point where they couldn't gaze across the land without spotting a yellow or red headlight in any direction. They were everywhere. Camping up on top of a mesa one night and seeing all the lights really put into perspective how outnumbered humanity was against the machines, and how easily Hephaestus could order all of them to hunt down humans across the land. It only made her drive to stop the AI much more powerful.

Passing through the jagged terrain into Shadow Carja territory, the pair came across a rather large herd moving across the sand. It's the largest group of Tramplers Aloy has ever seen. They move slowly, but with a purpose and as a unit. Aloy and Vale sit at the top of a sand dune and watch them migrate across the desert and Aloy notices that when one of the machines stop, either to excavate the ground with their horns or when the encounter another machine in their way, the rest of the herd also reacts to it. They deal with the threat/problem with an efficiency that she's never seen in a herd this size before. But then again, she's _never_ seen a machine herd this size before.

"We call this an exodus back home," Vale explains, which forces Aloy to suddenly pull her gaze away from the machines and ask him to repeat himself.

"Your tribe has a name for this?" she asks.

"They do. They happen all over the land, but the Lakota have a special term for them. Most people think that the machines are all possessed by one spirit, which is their way of explaining how they all move together, I guess. I just figured the machines were really smart."

Aloy smirks and turns herself around to look at him.

"I envy them in that regard," he continues. "Being able to work as a team like that. It's what I pushed my mercenary band to do. We'd run drills just to practice that when we weren't on a contract."

He fell silent, but it left Aloy wanting to know more about his old company. But the look at Vale's face made her think otherwise. In that instant he looked like he had grown forty years old, absorbing all that knowledge and emotional weight lost by all of his friends, aged by the impact of their deaths. Aloy liked to think that it was a similar pain to how she felt about Rost. His death still affected her to this day.

"Do you wish we had that compatibility?" she inquires, which compels the man to stare at her. Not with longing, but with assurance.

"I think we already do," he says. Surprise must be evident on her face, because he adds; "think about it. Our fighting styles are so different but they compliment each other so well. You fight with ranged weapons and I fight more close distance. You're agile and quick, I'm steady and planted. My shield protects you and your spear gets us through a door."

Aloy smirks. "It's sounds lame when you put it that way."

"But you see what I'm talking about, right? We cover each other's weaknesses."

Aloy gives it some thought and discovers that he's right. Vale had always been the one to cover for her while she fired projectiles at their target, whether it was a machine or a human. And his strength and skill up close made up for the lack of weapons Aloy had for close range. Of course she didn't think her spear skills were lacking in any way. She had taken on more than enough people in close quarters combat with her spear. Helis was one of those people, and he was the most dangerous man she had ever faced, that _anyone_ had ever faced. But Vale was the one with the metal and armour. He could take the hits whereas her leather and animal skins couldn't.

She smiles at him. "I think you're right, Vale. I don't think I've realized how well we've worked together until now."

"And in a world like this, that's important," Vale nods, referring to the large herd in front of them, which has mostly passed them by now. Aloy decides to bring herself to a stand and looks around her. There's part of an old structure sitting in the sand nearby, revealed by the winds. Desert lay ahead of them and a sandstorm that cloaked their view of Sunfall much further away.

"I need to change into different armour," she announces.

"Why?"

"Because once we get to Sunfall, anyone who recognizes me will call the whole Shadow Carja army upon us, and then we'll be in trouble. I have a disguise that will help me blend in as one of their Kestrels," she explains. She whistles for her mount and it comes running.

"That sandstorm is coming fast. We might want to take shelter and let it pass," Vale suggests as he rises to his feet.

"You might be right…" Aloy looks up at the sky; the dark sand cloud that was blocking the sunlight was a telltale sign that a heavy storm was brewing, and as much as she wanted to get to the Zero Dawn facility as soon as possible, she didn't want to fight through a wall of sand every step of the way.

So they bunked down inside one of the hollow ruins and set up their tent leathers to block as much of the wind as possible before the storm hit. Aloy was thankful that they had picked up some chillwater canisters in their last fight in anticipation for their trek across the desert. Vale was able to turn the liquid into regular water with his metal canteen device and it kept them hydrated through the dry storm and the dry rations they had to snack on. Too bad they didn't have enough to wash themselves with. Aloy was sure that the wrinkle in Vale's nose was caused by her stenches leathers.

The storm passes by late afternoon and left them with fading sunlight as the sun disappears behind the western mountains on the horizon. Aloy finds her bag of gear and started changing into her Kestrel armour, careful with all the pieces that were sewn together to not get them tangled in anything, especially the headgear that liked to get caught in her hair so often.

Vale was already waiting for her with their Striders, finishing up packing the rest of their gear when Aloy came out into the open. The mercenary turns to her and freezes and his eyes widen.

"What?" she asks.

"Uh-nothing. The mask looks good," he replies quickly and turns away. "Shall we get going?"

As he saddles up on his Strider, Aloy swears that there a hint of a blush on his face. She doesn't know why, but it makes her smile in a cheeky sort of way. She quickly tames it though and gets up on her ride.

They make it to Sunfall when the moon rises. The red torchlight reflects off the red sandstone and makes everything else look red, which works in favour for Aloy. She can't hide her long braids with her mask. They leave their Striders behind in a field of cactus and approach the large fort with caution. Since the attack, Aloy had never heard of how the Shadow Carja were fairing. But she assumed that it wasn't good. Losing their city and then losing the battle to take it back must have dealt a blow to the people.

There were no Kestrels on guard when they came to Shadowside, where all the tents of the common, poor people stayed. Aloy didn't think that things could get any worse for those who couldn't live inside the fort, but as she walked through the tents, she could count more people laying on the ground, sick and dying, more than the last time she was here. It was a terrible thing to see.

"It's worse than before," Vale says, his voice warped because his helmet is on and down. "I'm actually afraid to breathe in the air around here or I'm afraid I'll get sick."

"The nobles in the fort are keeping to themselves," Aloy observes. "We have to pass right through the Citadel to get to the entrance to Zero Dawn."

"How do we sneak through the palace?"

"As mercenaries," she replies and grins at him. "The Shadow Carja are always willing to pay to have someone stabbed in the back."

"Is it really that simple?"

"We're gonna found out."

They make their way up to the entranceway of the Carja fort and the dramatic shift in sovereignty surprises them. Kestrels stand on guard like statues as people explore the small market area near the entrance. A squad of soldiers practice in the corner of the level, whereas on the next level up they can see nobles and the wealthy gather at the edge of the railing, watching something exciting.

When Aloy and Vale join them alongside the railing they can see it, the grand sight that got them all riled up.

The Sun Ring was still being used for sport.

A Ravager was running around its target; a defenceless man in dirty worn rags and leather for clothing. He only had a spear with him, but by the way he cowered in his spot and ran away from the machine, he probably didn't know how to use it. The two of them watch in stunned silence as the machine dances around its prey before pounding on him. The man doesn't stand a chance against the might of the bigger machine. Aloy turns away, but finds herself facing the crowd next to them, who are _cheering_ , and closes her eyes instead.

"Monsters, all of them…" she seethes quietly. She feels a hand on her arm and finds Vale, but its hard to tell how he's feeling with the helmet on.

"Come on. Let's see if we can get into the Citadel," he says. She follows him without another glance at the nobles as they begin to disperse.

On a higher platform, a very different group of people are gathered at the front gates to the main palace. Most of them are wearing armour and have weapons strapped to their backs. Mercenaries, all from different tribes. Aloy almost forgot; Sunfall was also surprisingly culturally diverse. Banuk hunters and even Tenakth warriors could be found in the city, and some of them were waiting in front of the gates now. A pair of Kestrels stand guard as they seem to await instruction to let the mercenaries inside. Aloy and Vale join the back of the group.

Another guard steps forward. "If you are looking for today's bounties, head to the throne room. The noble Castor will read off the list of available missions for you to choose from."

Vale's head turns to Aloy. "Do we bother with the bounties?"

"No. Once we're inside we can sneak by the guards. They won't be paying attention, anyway," she answers. The man nods and they follow the group into the Citadel. It's not surprising to see that the royal court is the only place kept in shape in Sunfall. The curtains and tapestries hung on the walls don't have a single flake of dust on them and the decorations are as vibrant as ever. Where the throne sits is empty, but a priest in Shadow Carja robes stand in front of it, with a scroll in his hands. At least eight guards stand around them and the entrance to the balcony in the back is guarded by four other Kestrels. "This way, to the back," she says.

"Hold on. I want to hear this," Vale replies. She relents and stands by him as the priest steps forward and unravels the roll of parchment.

"The Noble Castor has offered a bounty on the woman who has plunged us into shadow and darkness, for her defiance of ritual in the Sun Ring and her interface in our conquest over our city Meridian. To the man who should bring her head to us, the total of four thousand shards!"

The crowd grew into whispers and cheers. Aloy was almost shocked. She didn't think that the Shadow Carja nobles would offer so much. The bounty on Uthid had been only two hundred.

"Someone pissed off the Carja," Vale mumbles. "What I would do with four thousand shards."

"I thought you send your earnings back to your family?" Aloy replies.

"I can afford to keep some of that. You know who offers four thousand shards for a job? No one, that's who."

Coming from a veteran sellsword, she decided not to argue against that. The priest unrolls another scroll.

"The name of this blasphemer – and the assassin who kidnaped our fair Prince Itamen, is Aloy of the Nora!"

"Aw dammit…"

Aloy feels her jaw drop and her blood run cold. She turns to Vale who's still looking ahead.

"You're not gonna—"

"Of course not, but you know what this means, right?" Vale snipes. It takes a moment for her to figure out what he's talking about, but she finally understands.

Machines aren't the only thing hunting for her now.

"We've heard all we've needed to hear. Let's go," he says, a little louder this time so that maybe the people around them could hear, and he turns around. Aloy follows him, but she skips in front to lead him to the Sun Ring balcony while also trying to get out of the building as quickly as possible, because every hunter sense she has is telling her that she needs to get out of there before she becomes trapped.

She rests her hands on the railing and takes a few slow breaths to calm the rapid heartbeat that she's never noticed until now. Her hands are shaking too.

"They'll all be looking for me. Hunting, like I'm some rabid animal," she murmurs, the horror of the situation hitting her in full swing. She feels a hand on her shoulder.

"I won't allow them to get to you," Vale confirms. She shakes her head.

"But don't you see? I did this to them!" she hisses, whacking his arm away from her. "Their nobles are so coddled and keep everything to themselves now more than ever, and the people down in Shadowside are suffering for it. I made them afraid, and now this tribe is going to tear itself apart!"

Vale holds a finger up to his face. "Shh. They attacked Meridian and sacrificed people for no reason. They deserve it."

"Not all of them. There are innocent people down there are are dying of starvation and sickness right now. Those people need help, _our_ help."

"What can we do?" Vale asks her, which finally makes Aloy stop and think. "They're beyond help at this point. They can only help themselves, and we can only hope that they'll come to their senses in time. And we have more pressing matters to be concerned about."

He was right. Damn the goddess, he was right. Who would the Shadow Carja except help from? Definitely not the Sun Carja, but nobody was closer to them than they were, and the Shadow Carja were hated by every other tribe.

She sighs in defeat. "You're right. I just hate seeing them all in pain."

"Even an enemy like this?"

"Nobody deserves to suffer like that…"

"It's why you saved the world," Vale pats her on the arm once. "Let's go save it again so we can deal with smaller issues like this."

"Right," Aloy scans the area and finds that the broken railing to the lower balcony has been fixed, but the platform is unoccupied, which allows them to jump down without being questioned or arousing suspicion. She can see the same trail of rocks and ledges that she used last time to get down safely and she uses that path again. Vale keeps up, skipping over the rocks and following her down the walls until they are on the ground. It doesn't look like the Carja have ever discovered this entrance at all as it lacks footprints in the sand, but the wooden cover that blocks the small gateway is still there.

"You think the Shadow Carja have found this place?" Vale voices quietly.

"Probably. Last time I was here, the Kestrels and Eclipse found there way down and attacked me. If they're still interested in this place, we'll probably run into trouble."

"Aloy, the Shadow Carja just announced that they're looking for you. Maybe I should go alone on this one, so they don't find you."

But Aloy shakes her head. "I'll be fine, Vale. As long as I have this mask on. And I think I can control the facility with my credentials so we can separate ourselves from them."

Vale stares at her for a few seconds before he raises his palms questioningly.

"What do you mean by that?"

She was just about to explain herself but stops, and realizes that this little detail was forgotten when she was explaining her travels to Vale. He didn't know about the giant triangular door that guarded Zero Dawn. Or how it only allowed her access because her blood was so similar to Elisabet Sobeck's. This was going to be difficult to talk around.

"You'll see," she finally assures him and delves into the tunnel. At the rappel point, they slowly rope downwards into the ruins, always on the watch for enemies. Though Aloy thought that anyone who might have found their way down here would have quickly turned around, realizing it was a dead end or was denied entry into the facility when the Identascan refused them. Vale has his shield mounted on his arm ready to go and is only one step behind her as she approaches the door.

" _Hold for Identascan."_

Vale almost jumps.

"What was that?" he quips, but watches silently as a red light washes over Aloy and disappears. Metal clicks and the facility opens.

"Greetings, Doctor Sobeck. You are cleared to proceed."

"Sobeck?" Vale glances at her. "Like, Elisabet Sobeck?"

"Yeah," she says with a sigh and walks into the facility.

"What—"

"Come on, we have to find the branch that made Hephaestus."

Vale doesn't ask further questions, and Aloy's isn't sure if it's because of her obvious discomfort or not. But she's relieved. Besides, the holovids in this facility could do a better job explaining everything than she could.

They walk through the main foyer room into the waiting room, and than through the first holo theatre. The video doesn't play, and that's when Aloy first notices that most of the power to the ruins is off. Only a few lights on the ceiling flicker white and barely give them enough light to navigate the rooms without stumbling on the limestone-covered ground. And it proves that the doors to the next waiting room is also powered off. Aloy finds a hatch and plays with the wires, but nothing has power going through it. With Vale's Focus, much like in Cauldron Sigma, he's able to find the right wires to cross and powers up the door, allowing them through.

"This is where the terraforming system was built?" Vale asks as they walk through the facility.

"Yes. Project Zero Dawn started here."

"So everything out there, the machines, the cauldrons, the Spires. They were all made here?"

"No. All the subordinate functions were created here. Hephaestus, Minerva, Hades. Teams of scientists and builders worked together to create artificial minds that would survive past Zero Day and start recreating life on earth," Aloy explains.

"What's Zero Day?"

"The day that all life on earth went extinct."

"Oh…"

It's still a sobering thought, to think that the whole earth was once so barren and toxic that nothing could survive. And it awed Aloy how in just under a thousand years it could all come back again with the help of machines, fully flourishing. And then it angered how how their little human squabbles could bring it all crumbling down again. Did the danger ever go away?

In the next room, Aloy stops and activates her Focus. She swore she heard something on the other side of the door, and a scan revealed she was right. There were bodies on the other side.

"Three of them, armed with two spears and a bow," she whispers. "I'll tag the archer. The two spearman are yours."

Vale nods and grabs his hammer. Aloy sets an arrow to her bow before unlocking the door. As soon as it opens, she steps in and finds the archer, planting an arrow in the back of his head. The other two enemies turn around, but one of them is shot by Vale's cannon immediately. He swings his hammer and the spearman attempts to block, but the heavier weapon breaks the shaft like a stick and smashes into the man's head and throws him to the ground.

"Kestrels."

"They'll be more of them," Aloy warns. "Let's try not to announces ourselves. We don't want to get cornered."

"Right." Vale mounts his shield back up and finds his gauntlet blade. They pace through into the next room where a hologram pops up out of nowhere, making the man jump.

" _Hello. I'm Margo Shen, and this is Hephaestus…"_

"What the…?"

"The Alpha, or the leader of the sub function. Margo oversaw everything to create Hephaestus," Aloy explains. Vale still looks startled.

"So is she the one we're after?"

"No. They're all long dead. Hephaestus runs by himself now, but this is where we should start looking." Aloy scans the area around her. She wants to curse. Even if she hadn't remembered every little detail of this room, she could tell that objects had been turned over, moved or taken, recently. The Shadow Carja has been down here at some point and swept through the place. That meant bad news for them.

"What are we looking for exactly?" Vale asks, gazing up at the large piece of machinery that sat in the middle of the large area.

"Information, data storage of any kind. There has to be something here that can tell us how to make an AI," she tells him. Aloy searches the desks near the walls of the room, but there's nothing there except the odd device and objects that have since then lost their power. This was an ancient metal world, and most information had been stored on digital devices. But if half the facility had lost its power, would they even be able to find what they were looking for? Or was it lost?

"There's a door with power to it here," Vale points out, which grabs her attention. It's a door that Aloy hasn't checked before, sealed because of the rock and hardened clay that had formed around it. When Aloy reaches for the lock, the door doesn't move, but they can hear clicking happening in the door. There's a window to the room that Aloy peers through; more desks and small metal boxes with blinking lights.

"It might be an office room or something. We have to get in there," she stresses.

"If we bust the door open, anyone in here with us will hear it," Vale warns.

"We can pry the door open," Aloy replies and grabs her spear. She wedges the tip into the seal in between the two doors and starts pushing the doors apart. Vale sticks his weapon in there too and helps. The rock cracks, the metal groans, but eventually they push the doors open wide enough that the mechanism can pull them apart by itself.

Inside the room, Aloy can see more lights, but a lot of them are red.

"That red glow can't be good," she mutters. "Be careful in here."

"Those devices are marked with data," Vale says, pointing to the devices on the desk. Lights envelopes them through the Focus with glyphs that Aloy doesn't understand because they're missing figures, making them incomplete from years of degradation, or because of the red text that replaces it with glyphs that don't look like they belong. But she touches the lights on the device, and an interface pops up for her. And luckily, nothing seems to be missing.

She looks into all the files she can find, reading paragraphs of text to find any information on making artificial intelligence. The first several files she scrolls through reveal nothing but progress reports and maintenance updates and the status of the Hephaestus branch coming to fruition. But there's mention of the Alpha's personal data library, so she backs up and searches the other files. One of them is marked 'Coding scraps'. It sounds promising.

"Did you hear that?" Vale says suddenly and Aloy lifts her head and stills herself. For a moment there's nothing but the hum of the devices around them, but then they hear it, barely audible, but the unmistakable sounds of shouting.

"We'll have company soon," Aloy murmurs. "I'm not finding anything useful here."

"Keep searching. I'll set some traps," Vale answers, and before she can argue he disappears behind the door, leaving her alone. But Aloy lets out a nervous breath and continues searching. She doesn't have time to worry about him. She has to focus on finding data.

She traces the scrap files to several other unnamed files, but when she clicks on one of them, nothing pops up but an alert that says _'3D software required to view data'_. She activates her Focus and finds her wireless connection setup and traces it to the device in front of her, where all the available data comes from. She then opens the files through her Focus and is bombarded by the image that pops up.

A large tangled mass of light and lines takes up most of the room, escaping the boundaries of the room even though it's just a hologram. But the image moves slightly, and the light in the centre flickers, almost like its… alive. This has to be the matrix of an AI.

Aloy is certain that this is what she's looking for. She pulls up another file and finds the same thing, but it's slightly different somehow. The lights are more spread out and the lines are more jagged. When the file said 'scraps', this must be what it meant; unused matrix processors that never got used. If any of these files were close enough to Hephaestus, this might be what they were looking for. She downloads the files and shuts down the large device.

Vale bursts through the door.

"You done? Cause they're almost here!"

Aloy curses silently but nods and picks up her bow. "Yes, I got what we need. Now let's—"

Suddenly all the lights in the room, the ones that glowed white and blue, all turn red. The door closes and locks on its own. Vale pounds his fist up against it, but it doesn't do anything. A voice speaks to them through the old intercom system that still works.

" _Priority target located. Eliminate Elisabet Sobeck."_

It was Hephaestus.

"Grr, why does everyone want to kill me?" Aloy shouts in frustration.

"The door's locked," Vale says. Aloy looks around. On a monitor mounted on the wall, numbers appear. They count down from ten minutes. Vale must know what she's looking at, because he asks; "what are those numbers for?"

"I don't know, but I don't want to be in here when it reaches zero," she responds quickly. "Take out the door. We have to get out of here!"

"But the Carja outside—"

"Just do it!"

Vale takes up his hammer in both hands and swings at the metal door without another second wasted. It takes a few swings, but the door eventually busts open with a bang and flies into the next room. Aloy already has two fire arrows ready and fires them at the first Kestrel she sees. There are two more in the room, but Vale has already set his sights on one while the other fires a firespitter missile at her. She activates the hardlight shield on her arm, and the missile explodes on contact but completely protects her. As the Kestrel stares in awe, she fires back an arrow into his chest.

They race through the ruins, but everything is on lockdown. Aloy notices something strange is happening to the facility as well: as they pass by a series of exposed pipes, she can see them letting off steam, like they're hot. One of the pipes has a hole and is hissing out steam. She never remembered that being the case last time she was here. Something was happening here. Hephaestus was doing something to the facility.

She blasts the next door open and come to the room where Elisabet's office is visible through the glass window. But ever since the ambush, the glass was gone and half the room was destroyed.

But Aloy remembers that her at-the-time captives had found their way down here through the roof. That meant that they could find their way out of the facility the same way. She finds a hole in part of the roof that's collapsed, but it looks like it leads somewhere. Wires hang down from it which would be a great way to climb up.

"This way!" Aloy exclaims and grabs the wires. They're thick and secure and she quickly shimmies her way up. A labyrinth of access tunnels spreads itself in the ceiling of the entire facility, but hatches block their path that can be opened with a handle. They aren't locked with any type of power so the deranged AI that's trying to trap them can't stop them from escaping this way. The hatches are small and require them to crouch, but they find that they lead up towards the surface. Far enough and Aloy can start to feel a draft blow through the hatch, which gives her hope.

Finally, Aloy opens the next hatch and fresh air blasts her in the face. They've made it to the surface. She climbs out of the access tunnel and scans her surrounds with her Focus quickly, finding no Shadow Carja soldiers. They're just outside the Sun Ring, on the far side from the fort where the sentries don't bother patrolling. She helps Vale out of the hatch and they both make a break for it. She isn't sure how much time they had left from that countdown that was displayed in the ruins, but they were out, and they were safe…

The ground suddenly rumbles and shakes violently. Dust rises from the sand at their feet and the walls of the Sun Ring starts to collapse.

"Run!" Aloy screams and starts sprinting. The rumbling gets louder until explosions could be heard and dust envelopes the entire fighting arena behind them. The force of explosions push Aloy and Vale to the ground and clouds of red dust blow over them. Metal clashes and earth explodes behind them, and when the noise quiets down, they get to their feet and find a frightening sight before them.

The Sun Ring had collapsed into Zero Dawn. Hephaestus remotely blew up the ruins of the Old Ones.

* * *

OOH, mic drop and... arena drop I guess? I mean I made the ring fall into the ruins under it and... nevermind.


	23. Across States Pt 3

**Across States Pt. 3**

* * *

The journey into the Forbidden West was nothing like Aloy had thought it would be.

Of course she had delved into these lands before. According to an old map she had found in metal ruins one time, the last step of her journey was made here, searching Nevada for the home of Elisabet Sobeck. She had found it, and took with her a memento; the little round artifact of earth that was held in the mummified hand of the scientist, long dead. She now kept that same artifact tied around her neck with a rope, along with her necklace from Rost.

"You never told me you had been here before," Vale had said as they rode through the vast plain.

"Once. Right after the battle with Hades at the Spire," she had answered. It wasn't as harrowing of a journey as Vale's was. But the path to Elisabet's childhood home was more in the north than his journey from his village. In the northern half of Nevada, the ground was dried up into hard dirt and dead trees. The southern half consisted of more sandy terrain and dangers that she hadn't heard of before. "You said there were machines out here once. What kind?"

"Long, skinny. Kind of like worms. But I don't think they like this hard surface. They move through the sand a lot better," he answered. "Why? Where are we going?"

"To visit a special place. I want to show you something."

Aloy had been thinking about it ever since they had entered Zero Dawn. His surprise at their method of entry brought forth the issue that Vale still didn't know her most closely guarded secret. And now she was preparing to tell him the truth.

In truth, she thought he deserved way more now. Vale had long since proven himself of her trust, fighting machines and learning how to stop Hephaestus together. And as he gradually learned more, he grew more understanding of the situation. Vale was a quiet wanderer on his own as she learned, which was how most of their traveling went – in peaceful silence and steady guard for machines. There was no need to worry about him spilling her secrets to anyone, and it gave her reassurance. This, along with that fact that his strong conviction to help with with the ongoing crisis, convinced her that her next decision was a wise one.

It was time he knew the truth between her an Elisabet.

"So Hephaestus keeps calling you Elisabet. There's an actually reason behind it?" he asked when she explained what she was preparing to tell him. "I thought he was just mistaking you for someone else."

"It'll make sense once I show you," she assured him. He nodded contemptibly.

It was a six day ride by the time they reached Elisabet's home on Strider back in the dead of night, much faster than the two week journey Vale had going the other way. He grumbled about it jokingly, but it made her realize something.

"Every Corruptor in the world is dead. I couldn't find another override device for you even if I wanted to," she broke to him, which was true. The destruction of Hades also resulted in – collaterally – the permanent deactivation of every Faro machine in the world. Even if Aloy did find a Corruptor, all its parts would be useless.

The house was exactly how she remembered it. The gateway to the lot still stood, with the label 'Sobeck' on the sign. The house was missing its roof but most of the walls still stood. A few trees surrounded it and a stone hedge circled the entire area. Aloy knew that the Old Ones liked to build houses right next to each other and square off their land for property, but looking around everywhere else, no other houses seemed to be around, not even broken down ruins of any kind.

In the old yard was where she still lay, back up against the stone, encased in an environmental suit half fallen apart by hundreds of years of exposure to the elements. Aloy approaches it slowly and stops just before the row of flowers that surround it, twinkling purple in the moonlight.

"There she is," she says. Vale appears beside her and observes the setup.

"That's Elisabet Sobeck right there?"

"In the flesh. Well… not in the flesh anymore, but…"

"I got it," he replies and looks down at the flowers. "May I?"

Aloy nods and Vale steps over the line of flowers and kneels down next to Elisabet. She joins him and the man taps his Focus, to view the pop ups on the body. He looks solemn.

"I feel it's unfair that nobody knows who she is," he says. "I mean, she created an AI to save the world. That's incredible."

"It _is_ unfair," Aloy responds and sits down on her knees. "But we can't do anything about it. You know how people would respond."

Vale doesn't respond to that, and instead remains silent for a few moments. It reminds Aloy of why they're here and she ponders how to begin the conversation.

"Vale, there's a couple of files I wanted to show you…"

Vale turns to face her, but his lips are prized in a grim line. "You can't show me those files, Aloy. I've tried everything but I can't figure out how to connect our Focuses together. They're just not compatible."

But then Aloy plucks her Focus from her ear and holds it out for him and he becomes silent again.

"You can just view it from mine," she says innocently, but Vale seems hesitant. She can understand it though; she had never given her Focus to anyone before. When she had been captured down in the Zero Dawn bunker and had later escaped thanks to Sylens, he had given her a Focus with all the data she had accumulated on her journey, and even quoted one of her oldest files. But that was different. Aloy never really gave him permission to search through her Focus, but he never brought up any of it to her. He had probably copied the files to explore on his own anyway.

"Are you sure?" he finally says. Aloy nods and smiles, reassuring him that it was okay.

"I trust you."

He takes the Focus hesitantly and holds it in his palm like a fragile jewel. Aloy gets up and starts looking for lumber in the dead trees. They were camping out here tonight.

Aloy tells him which files to look up; the two holovids made by General Herres and Elisabet Sobeck in the theatre rooms of Zero Dawn. She was glad that she had recorded them, because now that the Sun Ring had collapsed on it, she was sure most of the information was gone and not retrievable, even if the Shadow Carja _did_ want to poke around down there. She also told him to watch the message from Gaia from the Cradle facility, and she watched as Vale became still as he watched the fire she built grew. They set up their fire inside the house and Aloy took a chance to look around Elisabet's old home.

It was a small place, bigger than a Nora lodge but as fancy as the Carja homes in Meridian, minus the years of wear and ruin. There were four different rooms and a bathroom. Two of them were bedrooms and Aloy could easily tell which one Elisabet's room was. There was a bookshelf, but only a couple of books remained and the rest had decomposed into flakes and dust. Looks like Elisabet appreciated the feel of physical literature as well, and not transfer it all into digital pages. A large desk with a monitor sat in the corner, but the power to it had long since gone out and now it stood exposed to the elements of the desert. Dirt, leaves and rocks covered everything.

When she returns to the fire in the living room, Vale was still where he was, leaning up against a window sill and staring at the fire. The light on her Focus was still lit, meaning he was still watching the message. The huntress sat herself by the fire and waited until he moved again, but it was only the cross his arms over his chest and stroke his beard as he let out a sigh. She was nervous to ask what he thought.

"So, Elisabet isn't just your ancestor. She's your… uh…"

Aloy knew what he meant.

"A clone. That's what the Old Ones called it; a genetic physical copy of someone, every drop of blood the same," she answers. She knows that Vale came to the same conclusion, but he didn't seem too happy that she could tell what he was thinking so easily.

"And Gaia… she didn't just sacrifice herself to stop Hades; she sacrificed herself to make you too," he continues.

"At the ruins of Gaia Prime. Zero Dawn was discovered by the Faro Plague, so all the Alphas relocated there to live out the rest of their lives. There was a reactor core that Gaia used to blow it up, so now there's nothing left. Every decision that Gaia made was powered by that core, and without it, the terraforming system would fall apart."

"Fall apart… like how the machines become more dangerous. The sub functions that create the world don't have a master to answer to anymore, so they carry on aimlessly," Vale realizes.

"They became self aware, concerned only about their specific purpose instead of working in tandem."

"And now Hephaestus wants to step in and take control with this Command Protocol of his…" Vale brings up and shakes his head. But he relaxes. "Aloy… this is a hell of a story."

She huffs. "That's one way of putting it."

"This explains why he keeps calling you Elisabet; you _are_ her. A reincarnation. Gaia made you in her image."

"Yeah… I guess that's a nice why to put it," she says. The idea amuses her, and it's an analogy she's ever considered before. Reincarnation sounded a lot better than cloning.

"And with the weight of the world on your shoulders…" Vale approaches the fire and sits down next to her, crossing his legs. "I can't imagine how that feels."

Aloy shrugs. "It's more exciting than living the rest of my life in a single valley."

A hint of a smile appears on Vale's face, but it disappears quickly.

"So… you're not…"

Vale beats her to the punch. "This is a lot to take in. I mean, it's a _lot_. But I feel it makes so much sense. The machines, the ruins. This is the answer to our history, why things are the way they are. That's a big secret to keep to yourself."

"It hasn't been easy," she admits. "There are times that I wished I could explain everything to someone, but it's so hard to make them understand because everything… everything…"

"Is tied together!" They both say at the same time.

"Exactly!" Aloy exclaims. "I mean you can't just explain that the machines are terraforming the world. You have to tell them why without offending them because they grew up believing that the machines sing songs to each other."

"Uh… sure?" Vale nods, not quite understanding what that meant. Aloy sighs again and tries to calm herself.

"I just wish people would be more open to new ideas. It makes me feel trapped, alone for the rest of my life with this secret."

Vale pulls himself closer to her and lays his hand on her shoulder. When Aloy looks up at him, she can notice that his normal stoic stare is replaced by a caring one. "You're not alone anymore. You have me. You shared the world's secret with me and I'm not about to abandon you to fight this battle on your own. Truthfully, I _don't_ think you can do it alone. You need people by your side." Vale removes his hand and plucks her Focus from his ear and holds it out to her. "I'm honoured you chose me."

Aloy stares up at Vale, and being so close, she notices immediately how the light of the fire reflects in his eyes. The blue contrasts the red light and almost makes them look green, and the dancing of the flames make them look alive, sparkling in a way that reminded her of the moonlight reflecting off the surface of a lake. On calm nights like those, she could just stare at the lake and let herself get hypnotized by the lights. It made her think if other bright lights could have the same affect, like Oseram fireworks.

Before she let's herself get carried away, picks up her Focus and places it on her ear where it belongs, while trying to ignore the swelling in her heart.

"Thank you, Vale. You're right, I did choose you. It's a requirement to know everything in this line of work. We can't figure this out together if only one of us knows the truth," she says.

"Truth is a hard thing to come by, but I'm glad you told me this. I'll try not to let you down."

Aloy smiles and hesitantly leans closer to him until her head is resting on his shoulder, and she closes her eyes. Vale doesn't move or flinch at her touch. In fact, he seems to relax.

"I don't think you will."

They're both quiet for several minutes, listening to the sounds of crickets and beetles outside and the crackle of the fire in front of them. Aloy suddenly feels drained, physically and emotionally. They suspended of watching Vale listen to the holovids and waiting for his reaction had made her anxious, and it ate away at her until just now. She a wave of relief washed over her, as well as a whole new level of appreciation for her companion. Vale just never seemed to disappoint her.

"It doesn't stop with Hephaestus, does it?" he says quietly.

"No," she replies lazily, the word almost slurred rolling over her tongue. "All the sub functions need to be found and brought together. And restoring Gaia is another problem."

"What will it take to bring her back?"

"I'm not sure exactly. Either we have to rebuild the reactor core at Gaia Prime or bring enough of the sub functions together so that Gaia can piece herself together. And they both take a lot of work," she explains lazily. She was finding it hard to keep her eyes open now. It was late in the night, and they still had another day of riding ahead of them.

"One issue at a time, then."

"Yeah…"

She can hear Vale snort. "You can go turn in if you want. I'll watch the fire so it doesn't burn this place down."

Aloy smiles and lifts herself up to her feet. She's about to leave the room but stops at the doorway and faces the fire again. "Thank you again, Vale. It means a lot to me that I have your support."

He gives her a silent nod of approval before she leaves. She finds Elisabet's room and lays down in what the bed might have been, but the fabrics that made it were withered down and the layer of soot had hardened into dirt, so she laid a leather blanket down on top of it. Normally she would have slept near the fire and dozed off to the sounds of crackling coals and embers, but here in the home of her predecessor, Aloy had hoped to gain a sense of connection and perspective by sleeping in Elisabet's bed. She sooner fell asleep to her own thoughts, to what it must feel like to be a scientist who lived in a small countryside home that could create an AI to reshape the planet. How simple in retrospect that sounded when she thought about it…

… … …

It was a windy ride up the west side of the dry mountains that bordered Vale's homeland. The wind kicked up sand, and the sand blew into their faces, but luckily they both had face protection. Vale's helmet covered his whole face while Aloy's Kestrel armour covered her eyes. A pair of crystal clear visors fitted into the eye sockets of her head gear perfectly so she didn't need to worry about getting sand in her eyes. But everything else, like her boots and gloves, were scratched with grains of sand and damp from the heat of the desert.

They searched for another flock of Glinthawks to refill their reserve of chillwater before ascending the mountains. They weren't tall, but they were wide and difficult to climb. The soft ground made it hard for their Strider mounts to get good footing, making the trip unbearably slow, but they were making headway.

Aloy notices the wind began to die down as they reach the summits. Vale led her through a pass in the large crevices of the mountains, ginormous cracks in the earth that were eroded by the sand-blasting weather. Vale explained to her that this path was safe because of it. No one would bother setting up an ambush out here with conditions like these.

Coming to the end of the path, they stopped. The wind had become barely more than a breeze now and Aloy removes her head piece to let the wind blow through her hair. It was refreshing; it cools her scalp and dries away the sweat. But when she gazes ahead she freezes.

Lush green land lay in front of her, from the base of the mountains onward. To the north, a wave of trees and hills. And to the south, prairie land.

But what amazed her most was the never ending ocean that stretched across the horizon. The Great Ocean.

"Pretty, isn't it?" Vale says, watching her reaction. "I almost forgot what it looked like, being so far inland."

Aloy points to a structure in the distance. She can't quite tell what it is, but it sticks out with its grey colour in the mountains. "What's that over there?"

"The Central Kingdom. We should probably head there first," he says. "I have a contact among the advisors who can get us a look at one of the treasures."

Aloy stares in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"A Tallneck. It sits next to one of the barracks of the local army. We'll need it's data to get a fix on the land."

"Your people captured a Tallneck?"

Vale shakes his head. "No, more like the Tallneck knows nothing about personal space and suddenly stopped right next to the kingdom, nearly trampling several homes. But it hasn't moved in twenty or so years and, well… you can't exactly push it."

"So it just… stands there?"

"Basically. The people there built a tower around it to study it, or honour it, depending on who you ask. But it's still alive, and we can get some information out of it before we go find Minerva."

"Sounds like a plan," Aloy replies. The man nods and stares ahead. She assumes that he wants her to get them started, but she clears her throat. "Lead the way, Vale."

"What?"

"This is your land. You know the roads and towns better than I do. I showed you around my home land, now you get to be the guide," she tells him. Vale seems to hesitate for a moment, but picks up his reins quickly.

"Right. Well, uh… this way," he says and pushes his Strider into a walk. They still have a ways to go before they reach the bottom of the mountains and into better conditions, but even from where they were, Aloy couldn't help but marvel at the grand sight. Especially the ocean. It was just so _vast_.

Something made Aloy realize that it was Vale's first time back in months. He had explained once that he never looked forward to returning and pondered over what that could be. She got the impression that he had enemies, or a strained relationship with someone. She hoped that they wouldn't come across any of those problems in their journey here.

A few bad apples or not, this was his home. Vale had a family somewhere and she was interested in meeting them. She watches Vale as they ride. He kept his head down.

"Welcome home, Vale," she says. She doesn't know what kind of effect that might have coming from a stranger to these lands, but she wanted to make him feel better despite the looming dangers ahead.

The man looks up at her and returns a warm smile in appreciation.

* * *

Sigh, there just isn't enough time for me to write everything I wanna write at once! I got so many ideas runnin around my head I get confused. Pray I can start writing at full speed again soon.


	24. Army of the North Pt 1

**Army of the North Pt. 1**

Summary: Upon arrival, Aloy and Vale discover that the kingdoms are ready to go to war…

* * *

The serenity of the forest around them is a welcoming change compared to the desert they had to endure for the last week. Aloy let her hair fly in the breeze and took in the forestry scent, so glad to be back in her natural element. The stiffness of the Kestrel armour and the grit of sand that had compiled against her skin prompted her to stop on the side of the road and change into her Nora gear, which allowed more of a breeze to filter through her clothes and over her skin. That and she just plain stank of sweat. The first river they came across she would jump right in.

The first man-made structure they came across was a wooden building deep in the trees, surrounded at the back by cliffs of rock and streams of water that cascaded down through the cracks. The water flowed into a small creek that crossed in front of the building, requiring a bridge to be built as an entranceway. The large front porch had some tables where people sat with drinks and food and enjoyed the nature outside. Aloy notices the the glares that some of the people throw their way as they walk up to the front doors.

"Look at them fierce warriors…"

"I recognize the guy, but who's the girl?"

"Is that… him?"

Some of the people sitting at the table look like warriors themselves. One of them has a bow and their armour is grey crafted steel. His companion also wears armour, machine plating that fits over his chest and shoulders, but the leathers underneath have a unique purple trim on them. It looks totally foreign to Aloy but fascinating at the same time.

She can still hear a low murmur of whispers come from them as they walk by. "People like to talk around here," she says.

"Hate to disappoint you, but people talk as much here as they do in the Sundom," Vale replies and opens the door. "Rumours fly faster than a spilt mug."

Inside the building is a little lodge, with decorative features all over the place. More tables are set up with chairs and mugs ready to serve. There are plants hanging from wooden support columns and light filters in through the windows on the roof, giving the place a homey, forestry sort of atmosphere to it, just like the real world outside. But what amazes her the most is the trophy of some kind of machine mounted up on a pedestal in the middle of the lodge. All the armour plating is gone, leaving only the synthetic hide and metal wire skin underneath it, but it looks like nothing she's ever since before.

"Who's the big guy?"

"They call it a Shadow Jumper. A very rare machine, and even fewer survive an encounter with it. This place was founded at the kill site of one a few seasons ago," Vale explains. There's even a mural in front of the podium. Aloy scans a quick freeze-frame of the glyphs so she can read it later and follows Vale to the front counter. He flags down the bartender and gets them some drinks, but he seems to tip the bartender much more than is seemingly appropriate.

The bartender also seems to think this is odd, because he gives him a strange look.

"We're going to the Central Kingdom and heading north. Anything new in the area?" he asks. It's an even more stranger question that Aloy doesn't understand. But somehow the bartender gets it, because his reaction of realization is clear on his face.

"Oh, mustn't have been in the area very long, cause news is spreading fast. But if you're willing to pay…" the man says and leans in. "Central's been teaming up with the South to bolster their defences. There's a lot of concern about how the North is behaving, lately. In fact, some people are saying that there's an army of ten thousand hiding in the mountains somewhere."

Aloy's eyes widen and Vale's jaw actually drops.

"Ten _thousand_?" Aloy asks. "Where do they get an army of ten thousand?"

"Not sure, but I bet it has the warlords in Central quiverin' in their pants right now," the man finishes and leaves to attend other customers. Vale picks up his drink; his calm stature has returned in light of the troubling news, but Aloy still has a dozen more questions she wants to ask.

"Why would they be preparing an army in the middle of the Derangement? It doesn't make sense," she protests.

"I'm not sure. There's more to the story, I'm sure," Vale take a sip of his drink and sighs. The brew smells suspiciously like a pint. "That makes things complicated."

"Why's that?"

"The ruins of the Spire are in the Northern territory. If the Northern Kingdom is getting ready to fight, they'll likely have patrols set up along the roads. And if they spot anything, they'll use it as an excuse to attack," Vale looks up at her. "Relations with the North have always been difficult. They're power in court ruling was cut in half after their last king declared themselves independent. But now his son rules and he wants back in."

"And the other kingdoms won't let him," Aloy guesses.

"Exactly. And he's become jealous of the Central and South's flourishing relationship," he takes another drink of his brew. "And you know how jealously affects the hearts of men with power."

She nods solemnly, and suddenly that pint in front of her is looking appetizing. "So what does that mean for us?"

"We have to be careful, more so than we are with the machines. I doubt we'll make any headway on this trip if we can't get to the Spire in hostile territory."

"So… you want us to fight our way in?" she asks incredulously, but thankfully Vale shakes his head.

"No. That's why I said we need to see the Tallneck first. If we can figure out a way to send signals between the machines occupying the north and the Tallneck, we should also be able to track human patrols through those machines and create a map out of that."

Aloy gazes at the man in stunned silence. The plan makes perfect sense, in theory. The could track human activity through the machines and gather all that data through the Tallneck's information, and use that information to avoid confrontation with Northern foot troops. It was no different than how she tracked machine sites and villages. They had already gotten pretty good at avoiding most machines, aside from the assassin machines that hunted them outright. This would only add an extra layer of difficulty.

"That's… brilliant, Vale," she praises. The man smiles and looks down at his drink to hide it.

"Thanks. I mean it makes sense, after everything you showed me. Come to think of it, a lot of other things are starting to make sense too." With his mug empty, he turns away from the counter. "Should we get going? It's another day's ride to the Central Kingdom."

Aloy nods and stares at the other full cup of brew in front of her. She scoops it up and takes a long, large swig of it, fast enough that she didn't have to think about the taste too much as it washes over her tongue, but she can feel the alcohol burning in her stomach as soon as it hits. She chugs the entire thing down, slams it on the counter and turns towards the door. "Let's go."

Vale stares her in utter amazement, then at the empty mug, and then back at her… and then repeats this a few times.

"Alright…" he concludes, and they head for the road.

… … …

Walking up to the gates of the Central Kingdom's city was almost like walking into a fort. Stone watchtowers are set up along the road amongst the trees surrounding the city. It seems like a tactical choice. Aloy never noticed the towers until she spotted their bases within a dozen feet through the thick foliage. The branches stretch over the road and block the top of the towers from view. Any foe of the city wouldn't expect a counterattack until it was too late.

Soldiers in grey and red armour watch them approach from the high towers, armed with bows and spears. They wear helmets as well, like the Carja soldiers in Meridian, but these helms are simple and round, with a small golden crest framed at the top. Aloy can hear their whispers of astonishment as they pass by on their machine mounts, but she tries to pay them no mind.

Most of the city itself is blocked by the high walls bordering it, but Aloy can see the tallest structures even from their approaching angle. Buildings built out of stone and wood, mostly in square or hexagonal shapes with pointed roofs of some kind of red brick.

"What kind of tribe lives here?" she asks, voice full of enthusiasm that she didn't expect out of herself.

"The Gamakath, mostly. They occupy most of the region and control the kingdom here, but you'll see more envoys from other tribes inside," Vale answers, and Aloy can't help but feel fascinated. Who were the Gamakath? What did they do? She was on the verge of discovering a new culture and she couldn't wait to learn about it.

There's a large draw bridge that hangs over a drop in the land right before the city walls. Red banners fly high in the wind and – as they dismount from their rides just before the bridge – someone shouts orders from high up on the wall. A squad of Gamakath soldiers run out across the bridge. Aloy thinks they're just a regular patrol unit going out and admires the strict form the soldier display.

Until they stop and point their spears at them.

Vale's immediately on the defensive as they step back, reaching for the handle of his hammer, but the men are quick to surround them. "What is this?"

"Drop your weapons!" one of the men demands.

"I will not. What is the reason for this?" Vale growls. Aloy raises her hands, away from her weapons to show she has no intent of attacking. Six guards circle them with their backs towards the side of the bridge. Aloy steps closer to him.

"Maybe we should listen to them, Vale. We didn't come all this way just to get arrested."

Vale's hand still rests on his weapon, ready to fight. He seems to contemplate her words for a moment and then relaxes. "What is the reason for this, soldier?" he asks more firmly.

"You have been labelled as an associate of the Northern army. Surrender your weapons and we will escort you to the high wardens for judgement."

"What?" Aloy exclaims. She looks at the man next to him in hopes of some explanation to this absurd accusation, but she doesn't find any resolution in Vale's expression. In fact, she's disappointed to learn that Vale hardly seems phased by the news, giving roots to the soldier's claim. "Is it true?"

"I defected. Years ago," he answers quickly. "Why is this a concern now? Who put out the warrant?"

The soldiers freeze and look at each other. It's not a question that seems like it could startle a guard, yet the men hesitate to answer.

"Who?!" Vale shouts, making the men jump.

"Lord Dalax has called an investigation—"

"Dalax? Let me talk to him, and I'll show him exactly who's side I'm on," Vale dares, and it forces Aloy to grab him by the arm. His tone suggests he'll do a lot more than talk and they didn't need this kind of trouble right now.

"That's not a good idea, Vale," she warns. And then another voice shouts at them.

"Soldiers! Weapons down, that's a command!" The voice comes from the entrance to the city. A man in unique armour approaches them, accompanied by three other guards, all in similar gear like the soldiers around them, but sturdier and heavier and suggests a different level of rank. The soldiers surrounding them step back and allow their commander to approach, and when he spots Vale, he stops and plants his large weapon on the ground. It's nothing like Aloy has seen before; it might be a modified spear, but a long barrel is tied to the shaft with black machine wire and a large component is mounted in the middle. It looked like a variant of Vale's hammer – a dual elemental weapon but the elements were unknown.

The man exhales deeply. "You got a lot of nerve showing up here. I'm surprised you weren't captured by local bandits. Your bounty is high enough that anyone would want stake a fight against you."

Vale glares at the man. "Fabian. What's going on? I thought I was recognized as an ally."

"You _were_ … until his lord decided otherwise. I don't know if you've kept your ears open, but the North have become more and more aggressive lately, and so all of their former allies are being looked into and investigated. The price on you is high because—"

Vale cuts him off before he finishes. "I've been away for two months. It's kind of hard to keep track of events when I'm in another kingdom."

"Then it's time you got caught up. Besides, I think Chesser will want to talk to you anyway," Fabian replies and lifts his weapon off the ground. "So if you come with me, peacefully, we'll sort this all out," he then gazes at the other soldiers, looking every one of them in the eye as if relaying some sort of secret message. "Back to your posts, men."

As the soldiers break ranks and disperse, Aloy grabs Vale by the arm again. "Vale, what the hell was that about?" she says in a low tone. "Were you part of the North Kingdom's army?"

He sighs, but his posture is stiff and defensive. "Can we not do this now? I promise I'll explain later after everything cools down."

"You mean after you've removed this bounty on your head? I thought you were a mercenary, not a criminal!"

That seems to shake the man out of his senses. His posture sulks and he looks like he's been verbally assaulted. "I'm _not_ a criminal," he says firmly, and then adds, "not anymore. I promise. I still want to help you, but I have to figure this out or else things will just get more difficult for us."

He then pulls away and heads for the city. Aloy watches him go, utterly baffled by everything that's just transpired. It then occurs to her that this is what Vale meant when he said his relationship with people in his home land was difficult. It was why he was afraid of going back. Aloy thinks; he's never elaborated about his family or his friend, or even his cohorts and acquaintances. She was getting an impression that there was so much more to Vale than she realized and how much she didn't know about him. It made her angry, to let down her guard around him so easily when she hardly knew his intentions – his true intentions. And to think she was actually starting to… !

But what could she about it now? She had to put her feelings aside and play along… and watch her back. Aloy runs after him and enters the city.

The community is a lively place, similar to Meridian in a way. People are busily moving up and down the streets, most of them towards the centre of town. They had entered the residential side of the kingdom, so there are many homes here, built like squares with two or three floors to them to house many families. The road is lush, short grass, but the wide path between homes is well-beaten into a brown colour with the occasional stone buried in the ground to cover up a pothole. Between the many homes is a watchtower or two, with guards posted on the streets and watching the people go by. Some of them acted out their duty, helping citizens and sorting out disputes on the streets.

When they cross onto another street, Aloy could see a large, long building where soldiers walk in and out of. The same red banners fly on wooden pillars at the entrance to the building. Fabian, his accompanying soldiers and Vale walk into the structure without a moments pause, but Aloy is still observing everything, looking like a confused tourist as she whips her head around this way and that, trying to take in every new detail. It was like walking into Meridian the first time, but she couldn't get distracted now. There would be time to explore later.

There's a wide open hall in the middle of the building where soldiers are seen lying about, on taking a break from duties or switching shifts with another crew. Some of them stop their idle chat to gaze at her as she walks by. She tries to pay them no mind, but like the citizens of Meridian, the Central Kingdom's people like to mutter their thoughts a little too loudly.

"You lost outsider?" one of them says. Aloy pays them no mind and puts herself closer to Vale's side, although that too is starting to feel like an uncomfortable spot in light of the last few minutes.

Finally, Fabian shows them into a room around the corner of the hall. Inside this room, a large round table is set in the middle with many papers laid across it, maps of the land and little wooden figures. A single man hovers over a map on the wall, the largest depiction of land that she can see; it even labels the Great Ocean. It's a map of all three kingdoms.

"Chesser, look who's come to see you!" Fabian announces in a sarcastically cheerful tone. The man turns around. He looks strangely young – his medium-length blonde hair is slicked back and shaven on either side of his head, and his attire consists of purple robes with a unique yellow trim. There's barely any armour on him except for his boots, which have grey metal plates fitted on them. His eyes narrow at Vale in a disappointed glare.

"This is the worst time for you to show up," he mumbles. Vale huffs.

"Good to see you too," he looks back at Aloy and waves his arm to the man before them. "Aloy, this is Chesser, the army strategist and counsel advisor. Chesser, this is Aloy."

Chesser's glare doesn't change. "You realize if Dalax finds out you're here, he'll have you arrested."

"The soldiers already tried that at the gates," Fabian replies. "I stopped them. I thought you two might want to talk. It's been a while."

"It has," Chesser approaches the table and gazes down at the maps, running his fingers across the parchment. "Fabian, tell the bounty board to drop Vale's price."

"That all you got?"

"For now. I'll summon you when I need you again."

"Consider it done," Fabian takes his fist and pounds it lightly against his chest twice, the same gesture that Vale had shown Aloy when she had gone hunting with Talanah. Chesser returns the motion quickly and the man exits the room.

"Thanks for that," Vale says, but the man shakes his head.

"Don't thank me just yet. I only did that because it would inconvenience my resources."

"What do you mean?"

The man rises to his full height and folds his hands behind his back. "You're a former soldier of the Northern army. I'm sure you have some knowledge about their patrols and tactics that would be very beneficial to us. Their army is amassing, Vale, and I need to milk every resource dry to prepare for them."

"Why do you make it sound so dire? You've won plenty of battles against the North," Vale asks. The man sighs and plants his hands on the table.

"They have control over machines."

* * *

So Friday completely got away from me yesterday so I apologize for the late update, but writing has come back up to full speed. Interesting things developing in the new land, aren't they?


	25. Army of the North Pt 2

**Army of the North Pt. 2**

* * *

Aloy's blood freezes in her veins and Vale visibly becomes still as his jaw hangs open. Their reactions must have been unforeseen because Chesser's face scrunches in concerning confusion.

"Hm, not how I was expecting you to react."

"What do you mean? How… how's that possible?" Vale asks, trying to shake off his stupor, but the news still shakes him.

"It hasn't been confirmed but reports suggest that the North takes the machines through grotesque means. Agents have seen their soldiers wrestle with machines and capture them, and then bring them to the main city, so the true cause lies there," Chesser stops and sighs. "How they do it in the middle of the machine's rage is astounding and absurd, but somehow they do it."

Aloy catches Vale throwing her a look, and it's an innocent, meaningful look that suggests that he's thinking the same thing she is. If the Northern army has found a way to control machines, then it would explain the wild rumours of their massive army they heard of, back in the pub of their first stop since arriving in these lands. It would also explain Chesser's urgency to learn everything Vale knew about their army.

"It's like the Eclipse all over again," she murmurs with horrific realization.

"Aloy," Vale begins, but she raises her hand to stop him.

"We need to see the Tallneck!"

"Excuse me?" Chesser replies. "The tame one in the bastille? Why?"

Aloy hesitates, realizing that she couldn't explain without being pelted with a hundred other questions concerning her unique abilities. No one in these lands had ever heard of her, or of her ability to tame and ride machines. And around a man like Chesser – as she was quickly gathering what kind of person he was – she couldn't just go around claiming to be able to do these things.

"Chesser, as much I'd like to help, we're not here to fight the Northern army. We're here because of something else, a much bigger problem; the Derangement," Vale tells him, diverting the man's attention from Aloy.

"Tell me – what does a Tallneck have to do with the Derangement? That machine is the only metal beast in the world that isn't affected by the machine's rage. You would go and tamper with that treasure?"

"We just need to look at it. Trust me, Chesser, this is important," Vale pleads. Chesser narrows his eyes. "You're the only one who can grant access to it for outsiders."

" _Before_ I do anything for you," the other man says and stands up straight, his voice demanding but calm. "You have to do something for me. I need information on the Northern army. I'll allow you an audience along with the Nefora priestess after you give me the information I seek."

Vale exhales through his nose and closes his eyes. Aloy just looks between them with confusion, a hundred questions still circling in her brain. Who were the Nefora? And what did they have to do with seeing the Tallneck?

Vale finally turns to her, his expression completely changed. "This discussion won't take long. Wait for me outside the barracks."

"But we still need to talk, Vale," she reminds him with restrained annoyance. She hated being kept in the dark.

"And we will, I promise. I'll explain everything once we're done here," he answers, placing a hand on her shoulder. She notes the change of tone in his voice; it's soft, and the look in his eyes caring, but with a hint of worry in his furrowed brows. "Please, trust me."

It's the last thing that comes to mind after all that she's learned so far, but he was her only ticket to getting to Minerva. She couldn't let this little development get between them. She _wanted_ to trust Vale, after all. She had trusted him with her greatest secrets, and the secrets of the world. Now it would be his turn to reveal his story.

Aloy brushes his hand off her shoulder. "Don't keep me waiting."

She then turns and slips through the door without sparing either men another glance.

… … …

It's only about a hour later that Aloy waits on the side of the road, crafting more arrows in a slow procedure and observing the city from where she sat. It was late in the afternoon now, but the hustling of people never ceased. She never kept count of how many people gave her strange glares as they walked by, but there was certainly a large number of them. It made her feel isolated in a way. She would never feel truly at home in this city or possibly anywhere in these lands.

And suddenly she began to feel homesick.

"Aloy."

The woman looks up and finds Vale approaching her, walking down the steps to the barracks. She puts her equipment away and stands up.

"All done in there?"

"Yeah, I've told Chesser everything he needs to know, and now we got a meeting with the clergy at the bastille at sunbreak," he turns and points at two soldiers walking side by side who are also leaving the building. "Those guys will let them know we're coming, so we got some time."

Aloy nods and crosses her arms over her chest. "So… you've got a story to tell me?"

Vale almost looks guilty, but he nods and waves for her to follow. "I know a place where we can talk alone. Come on."

Aloy follows him back through the city towards the city limits. Along the high stone walls are buildings that match them in height, and it's revealed that inside they have staircases that reach up to the top. There's a walkway along the top of the walls and strange giant weapons mounted on pedestals. They look like giant bows, but they're laid sideways and have a large payload consisting of three metal bolts. The bowstring is construed across all three bolts and a locking mechanism holds the string back, meaning the weapon is primed to launch at a moments notice.

She follows Vale down the wall, passing by soldiers out on watch, for machine or human threats alike. They stop at one of towers, a large balcony that's unoccupied, save for a stash of equipment like arrows and spears and other types of ammo. It's a quiet section of the wall where not many soldiers come to, making it the perfect place for a private conversation.

Vale leans up against the railing and breathes out slowly. When he looks up and meets her gaze, his usual blank face has returned. "So I imagine you have a lot of questions for me?"

Oh did she ever, but she had so many spinning around her mind that she had to pause herself for a moment and choose. She walks up to the railing and observes the great expanse of land. The view from the wall allows them to see much of the forest around them and the dry mountains in the east. Aloy would have preferred looking at the ocean instead, but it was still a beautiful sight.

"Did you really fight for the Northern army?" she asks, not taking her eyes off the horizon.

"I did, many years ago. I traveled for a long time on my own, taking on the odd job, trying to keep a steady income of shards to stay on the road. But after a while, I startled to get restless. I wanted fame and glory and searched all three kingdoms for it. The North have a fighting ring to wrestle the worst machines in the land. That's where I got my start."

"That's where you learned to fight machines, how you got so good with the weapons you use."

"Yeah. I found fame pretty quickly, and soon the emperor admitted me into the army. You grow up fighting machines a lot and soon humans don't look so bad. I became a champion in battle."

"What kind of battles did you fight?" Aloy asks as she back away from the railing.

"Big ones. The emperor at the time, Lord Zeroha, never had much of a friendship with the other kingdoms either, but he maintained the trade routes and political issues out of the need to keep businesses and product flowing. And then one day he suddenly declared themselves independent. People weren't too happy about that. Everyone started to pick sides – squabbles on the streets turned into bloodbaths, meetings turned into war counsels. It was ugly."

"And then his son takes over, like you said before," Aloy points out. Vale nods and turns to face the world like she was.

"Battles started to change. They became strategic: sabotaging supplies, kidnaping messengers, anything to learn about what the other rulers were planning without us. His jealousy turned into rage, and now he sends his armies out just to spite the people that never welcomed him."

"So how did you get out of it?"

"I came to my senses," he replies, which make Aloy snort. "No, really, I did! I realized how our fights were affecting the poor and all the innocent men and woman caught in the middle. The North spared no expenses, and no lives either. I wanted out, but the emperor wouldn't let me. So I got word out to Chesser. He helped me escape."

"That's how you know him, then?"

Vale nods. "Chesser was an army tactician. He convinced the other kingdoms that with me out of the picture, they would have a lot easier of a time fighting against the North. My fame went with me. Troop moral levelled out between each side and the North retreated back to their kingdom. The South and Central Kingdoms have been keeping a close eye on them for the past six years, but nothing's ever happened."

"Until now," she points out again.

"I used my freedom to refocus my priorities. I didn't want fame anymore, and I had been neglecting my tribe. So went out for a bit of… soul searching, found experts that taught me so much, and eventually I started my own mercenary group to support my family back home. We ran jobs across the land for three years until we came upon the fallen Spire."

"And that's when you found me."

"Exactly," Vale sighs and pulls out his canteen for water. "And that is the story of me and the North."

Aloy ponders over everything Vale had just explained, including this family that he had mentioned now a second time. She was curious who they might be, what the Lakota were like. Vale was old enough that he could have had a family of his own by now. Did he have any family members? Did he have a mate? She was almost afraid to ask.

But the wider problem was his participation in battles for the Northern army, the ruthless people he had once served.

"Sounds like you got a legacy of your own, Vale," she speaks up. Vale snorts after taking his sip of water.

"Not one that I'm proud of. We never had a lot of success as a mercenary band because of it, but I tried to not let that ruin us. We took small jobs, going to the far corners of the land to look for them. You know, people who weren't affected by the wars as much. It's how I discovered that pass through the dry mountains we took to get here." He put his canteen away and drew out a heavy breath. "I wanted to make up for damage and pain I had caused people, so we took on any jobs that helped the common, from the big to the small. I knew I couldn't make people forgive me for what I did, but I would do whatever it took, for as long as it took."

"You were looking for redemption."

"Yeah… I guess you could call it that."

"There's nothing wrong with what you're doing, Vale," she tells him. He looks up at her cautiously but doesn't move. "Anyone who can turn themselves around like that is a good person to me. And now you're here, trying to help me save the world from the machines. You're forgoing fame and fortune just by helping me with my struggles. Even if we don't succeed, I think you're earned the forgiveness you were seeking. You have mine."

Vale stares at her for a few seconds, still, but a smile grows on his face and he rakes his fingers through his hair.

"Thanks. That means a lot to me." He then stands up straight and steps away from the railing. "Come on. We have a meeting with a Tallneck."

She nods and they walk back towards the stairs and back into the city.

The bastille that's been mentioned before is located on the other side of the city, meaning they have to cut through the crowds to get there. On the way, they pass by the marketplace and Aloy can't help but wander around the vendors to look at everything new and foreign. They're much like the traders in Meridian, but everything from the ordinary household item like candles and bowls, to the machine parts and weaponry made by tinkerers, is of a different style and nothing like she's used to seeing in Meridian.

She spies a curious weapon in one of the vendors; it looks like a smaller version of the turret she saw up on the wall, but it holds only one bolt. There's a basket of wooden arrows as well and to her surprise, a batch of metal arrows.

"There's a lot of Lancehorn hunting along the slopes of the mountains," Vale tells her. "You'll find no shortage of unique parts here."

Aloy buys what she needs for her constricted bow, and they used the chance to stock up on other provisions – having run short on their journey across the desert – before continuing.

They finally come up to a structure that's easily the tallest building in the city. Not even the palace in the middle has towers that reach as high. This had to been where the Tallneck was. Aloy stares up at building, noting the balconies and windows along it's sides.

At the entrance to the building are two guards. Vale walks up to them for a quick word and they are allowed inside, and Aloy gets a good look at the statue of a machine that's inside.

The Tallneck is real. It stands perfectly still inside the stone and wood structure that it has been encased in. No armour plates or wires have been stripped from it, and she can see from the light that runs through its synthetic muscles that the machine still has power. Standing right in front of the machine guards and men in robes surrounding a single girl in white and blue royal attire. The girl cranes her head back and raises her arms, and starts speaking slurred words and phrases that Aloy can't make sense of.

"Who is that girl?" she whispers to Vale so as not to disturb them.

"A member of the Nefora tribe. They believe that the machines carry some mystical powers and should be seen as gods of the world," Vale replies in a hushed tone.

"What is she saying?"

"A prayer. The Nefora have their own language, which they claim was given to them by the machines a long time ago."

"So why are they here?"

"Because they believe the Tallneck being here is a sign. They send envoys from the south to honour it and try to decipher the meaning behind this… anomaly."

They wait until the girl has finished giving her prayer and the rest of the men bow their heads towards the machine before leaving. Vale points to a large structural cage to the side; a small elevator that'll take them to the top of the building and to the Tallneck's head. Aloy has him wait and walks up to the lone girl. The guards stand by at a distance but otherwise don't stop her from approaching.

"You're a priestess, right? Of the Nefora tribe?" Aloy begins. The girl turns to face her and she's shocked to see how young the woman is. She could have been younger than herself, even. And instead of paint tribal marks, Aloy realizes that the girl has bright reflective markings on her face that look like gold around her eyes and chin. Her blonde hair almost matches the gold and has blue ribbons weaves into it, like the blue in her robes. And her surprisingly tan skin contrasts all the other colours. She's breathtakingly beautiful.

"I am Gallie, the honourable translator for the Tallneck," she greets. She looks over her and brows furrow only a little in confusion. "You are an outsider, are you not?"

"I'm a Nora. My tribe is to the east, far across the desert. I came here with a friend from the Lakota," she explains and points up to the giant. "Pretty impressive, isn't he?"

The girl nods and gazed up at the beast. "Yes. The Tallneck's presence here has fascinated many people with its ever-still display. My elders were intrigued when they heard of such strange behaviour and sent many of our priests to translate its thoughts. The lord of the Central Kingdom has been kind enough to listen to our requests and built this shrine around it so we could communicate without interference," she looks back down and levels her stare with Aloy. "You have talked with the machines, haven't you?"

It was an observation, not a question, and that's what surprises Aloy. She has a hard time coming up with a good answer of her own, and it inspires a smile to form on the priestess' lips.

"I can see in your eyes, and the way you carry yourself. You've heard them speak, both of great and terrible things, and you've seen the god's wrath and their blessings," she adds. Aloy only nods, still shocked by the girl's accuracy.

"You're not wrong," Aloy says.

"May I give you some advice? I think you might need it," the priestess offers. Aloy nods her head.

"What do you want me to know?"

"There are trying times ahead, for you and the world around you. Terrible as the machines have become, they are still our guardians. Where danger lurks, they aim to dispel it. Where fortune hides, they seek to spread it. Their power is to be feared, but also respected. You may be bestowed upon their power one day and you _must_ be wise with it. No one man or woman is meant to trifle with the power of the gods alone," she stops and take a slow breath and then smiles at her. "But I think you will prevail. You're heart is a pure one, Aloy. I hope that the trials ahead will only strength it." She glances at the guard at the door and nods. "Farewell, and good luck."

The girl steps away from her, leaving Aloy to soak in her words in silence. She would have accepted the kind words without a blink if they weren't concerning her life alone. But they had. This was advice meant for her specifically, and somehow Aloy couldn't shake the feeling that she had to take it to heart, especially with where they were headed.

"Wait…" she says with growing shock. "I never told you my name."

But the priestess was already gone and only a few guards remained inside. Slowly she turns and walked to the elevator to find Vale, the words of the Nefora girl replaying in her head.

"How'd your conversation go?" Vale asks as she approaches, but his look changes. "Aloy? Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I just had the weirdest conversation…" she mutters. Vale raises an eyebrow in question.

"The Nefora tend to be a sideways with all their mysticism and prophecies. I wouldn't listen to them too much. Besides, we know the truth now." He walks up to the elevator and opens the latch and door for them to go inside. "You coming?"

"Uh… yeah!"

Whatever the priestess has meant would have to be solved later. She jumps into the elevator with him and he pulls the lever. An assortment of chains and pulleys pull the small cage up through the building rafters. The top of the building is domed and widely framed around the machine's head, and a platform circles around it disk shape. The windows around them let in plenty of light and offers a great view of the city below.

There are no guards up here and a plank bridges the gap between the platform and the machine. Aloy walks across and stops at the centre of its head, where the little data module sits.

"Let's hope nothing's wrong with you," she murmurs to herself and unhinges her spear. The Corruptor tech connects to her Focus. Vale stands by and watches as she jabs it into the top of the Tallneck's head. The data download pops up in her Focus display and the gauge begins filling up.

But then another display appears. Aloy watches as the Master Override lights up and begins flashing in sync with some of the lights on the new display. She interacts with one of the symbols and a text of status alerts appear that appear in a yellow or red light.

"That's new," she says.

"What's wrong?" Vale asks.

"The Tallneck… is reacting to the Master Override," she replies. It never happened to her before, but she's never had the powerful device on hand whenever she overridden this kind of machine, either. By the time she had found it in the ruins of Gaia Prime, Aloy had discovered all the Tallnecks she could find. There was no telling if this was strait unique to Tallnecks, but it was definitely interesting.

"What's it doing?" Vale asks again. Aloy views the data more closing.

"There's a glitch in the Tallneck's orbit. Something happened as it was sending a signal to Gaia Prime, the signal was corrupted or scrambled. Wait," she explains, thinking about how most of the Tallnecks she overrode were stuck in an infinite loop because they never received a message back from dead ruins. "How long did you say this Tallneck has been standing here?"

"Roughly twenty years, give or take some. Why?" Vale answers. The huntress nods and scrolls through the data.

"I think this Tallneck was speaking to Gaia Prime at the same time Gaia blew it up. It was probably in the middle of changing its orbit but never got a response because Gaia sacrificed herself and all the signals bouncing back stopped. The Master Override came from the same place, so the Tallneck must be reaching out to it instead."

"Okay. That doesn't explain what the Tallneck wants, though."

"It wants instructions. Think about it; the purpose of the Tallneck is to map out land and send signals to all other machines. Half of the machine's data is corrupted or incomplete because it asked for an answer and never got one back."

"So what's the Master Override doing?"

Suddenly all the data lights up blue and the status alerts disappear. A clicking emits from deep within the machine below them.

"I think we're about to find out…"

Something within the machine begins humming and the metal starts to vibrate. The lights all around the machine flash with power and a groaning sounds echoes loudly in the building as the machine begins to move.

"Hold on to something!" Aloy cries. The machine's head sways a little, challenging their balance. Aloy holds on to her spear but Vale struggles to find grip before the Tallneck springs to life and swings back before stepping forward and smashing through the building.

The brick and wood break away with little to no effort on the machine's part. Debris and stone fall around them as the Tallneck steps out onto the streets. Vale just about falls off, but manages to grab onto one of the small antenna beams hanging off the back of the machine's head. The Tallneck stops mid-step, nearly bringing down its multi-tonne foot on an innocent mother and her child before turning and begins walking down the street.

People run and flee from the streets as the large machine thunders by. Aloy watches in shock as the Tallneck cuts through a street garden, crushing a stone statue that had an assortment of flowers and wild plants on it without a pause in its step. Vale cries out as he swings from the back. Aloy reaches out to him and pulls him up onto the top, all while trying to keep her balance on the machine's swaying head.

"I don't know if it can smash through that wall," Vale says, looking ahead to where they were headed. The Tallneck was attempting to leave the city, walking towards the high walls that protected it. Aloy can see the city guards and other soldiers take their position around the gate that is far too small for the machine to fit through. A lot of them carry bows and that modified bow weapon she spotted earlier, but she knows that it's a futile effort: _nothing_ would stop the Tallneck.

But then the machine comes to a stop. An eerie silence settles in as both the gargantuan machine and the small human army below wait for either side to react.

"Why did we stop?" Vale asks in a hushed voice, despite being nowhere near anyone else besides Aloy, it seemed he didn't want to break the quiet air.

"Something's happening. Tallnecks don't just stop walking on their own," Aloy replies and turn around when she hears clicking. The large array beams mounted on the Tallneck's back hump begin to split apart, revealing bright glowing devices. A whirling Sounds comes from somewhere within the machine like energy is gathering somewhere. The light intensified until its too much to look at. Someone calls for a retreat below and the Tallneck reveals its ability.

Beams of light shoot into each other, creating a bigger one that focuses its direction at the wall. Two intense beams of light shoot from either side of the Tallneck and blasts a line down the side of the wall. The blasting is deafening and Aloy watches in pure amazement as the wall begins to collapse as the soldiers flee the area. When the blasting stops, there's a large enough gap in the wall for the Tallneck to step through. The arrays close shut and the machine begins its march. As they pass by the wall, Aloy can see a group of soldiers watching them from the top walkways, including that man Fabian from earlier.

"We need to leave. _Now_ ," Vale urges, following her gaze until he spots Fabian up on the wall.

"There's rappel points on the side. There," Aloy points to the small parts that are hinges to the edges of the machine's disk-shaped head. They throw their ropes and jump off the side, sliding down until they were safely on solid earth. They hear shouting come from the city behind them and they both make a run for it, into the forest around them.

* * *

So we're almost caught up to my chapter storage, so beyond next week updates will become randomly sporadic as I try to write. My work schedule has changed so I'm working later on a tougher job, which has totally killed my creativity. So I apologize ahead of time for the lack of updates in the future.


	26. Army of the North Pt 3

**Army of the North Pt. 3**

* * *

The northern land that lay beyond the Central Kingdom was a long, wide range of mountainous terrain and tall, stiff pine trees.

It made for a beautiful landscape. Huge cracks in the slopes and the melting runoff from the mountain created rivers and ravines that dropped in huge waterfalls into gorges below. Man-made paths were built into the side of the mountains that ran under cliffs and through tunnels, behind the walls of water that flowed eternally. A mist rose from the crash of water, making everything damp. But the road is made mostly of rock and stones and allows water to flow freely in between the empty spaces.

Where they wander now is right under one of the biggest waterfalls they have come across so far. The naturally formed overhanging cliff is so large a Deathbringer could have marched through there, and trees and grass have found there place underneath here. It's a breathtaking sight, a natural wonder.

But at the moment, Aloy hardly felt anything but wonder.

"Vale, can I…?"

"No."

"But I just—"

"Stop."

"…But can we just…"

"Aloy!" Vale finally snaps and stops to face her. "What happened back there is _not_ your fault. There's no way we could have predicted what was gonna happen."

"But they'll be looking for you," she exclaims. "They'll reinstate the bounty on your head. They'll probably raise it!"

Vale sighs. After the Tallneck had walked through the city and escaped its confinement, where people had gone to honour it and worship the gentle machine, Aloy had this cloud of guilt following her around and she couldn't get rid of it. They had just learned that the Central Kingdom had announced a warrant for Vale's capture, and his ally Chesser had eliminated it just before allowing them to see the Tallneck up close. There was no doubt in her mind that people would link their visit and the Tallneck's escape together and be searching for them to get answers. Or arrest them for the destruction of a temple and some property damage.

And the border wall. How could they forget how the Tallneck _blasted_ the wall apart? And with a function that nobody in the world had ever seen before?

"We just need to avoid Central for a while. Once they calm down, I'm sure it will be fine," Vale says before continuing down the path. Aloy isn't satisfied with that answer. She knew Vale was annoyed with this inconvenience. That his own people would be looking for him. And it was her fault. If she hadn't trifled with the machine, things would have been fine.

She runs to catch up with him. "I still feel terrible about it."

"Well forget about it. Why don't you use the data you got and try to figure out where we're going?"

Aloy does as he says because there's not much else for her to do and dives into her Focus, pulling up her file of maps she had gathered from previous Tallnecks. What amazed her about this new map was how accurate it was despite the Tallneck being still for so long. She was worried that the map would be outdated. But then Aloy remembered how the Tallneck in the Cut has provided her with the latest terrain data after being frozen for years, and it was because of all the new data it had received from machines had yet to up uploaded to the old map. Once she had revived that machine, it had downloaded the data and provided her with up to date information, including the bandit clan that had settled in Stone Yield. This new data was no different.

But now she had a new entry to upload to the map legend: human convoys. The Northern kingdom would be patrolling its land, and Aloy and Vale had to avoid them to prevent conflict and starting a war. They could be marked on the map through the eyes of machines, which was then sent back to the Tallneck and recorded. And because Aloy had access to that data, she could see every human sighting within the given area. They would probably have to find another Tallneck at some point to reveal more of the map, but for now they had to work with what they had.

The location of the collapsed Spire was here in the mountains in North territory. Aloy relied on Vale to show her the way, since he knew the land better. The mountain passes were dangerous as they were beautiful – if they were caught in a storm, they would be delayed, and according to Vale the danger would be worse the further they went. The mountains would become cold, and avalanches were a risk in the unstable slopes. Nothing would be easy about this journey.

"Strange," Vale muses, stopping near a cliff along the path just before it bends around the corner. He peers over the edge cautiously and Aloy joins him. At the bottom of the ravine is only water and darkness, but the water flows further downstream and down the mountain.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

"There's normally a waterfall right here."

"Maybe it froze up?" she proposes, but Vale shakes his head.

"No, we're not high enough yet. This isn't right…"

"Did you wanna check it out?"

"No. There's no quick path up there, and we got more important issues anyway," Vale replies and continues walking. Aloy is surprised. A disappearing waterfall sounded like a _big_ issue, especially in a world where big changes were happening. She made a mental note to investigate it later, if they had the time.

She continues to look through the map on her Focus and comes across a blockade. On their current path, they were due to run into some patrols at the bottom of the mountain path. Judging by the distance, she estimated that they would reach them in a hour, which didn't give them a lot of time. The terrain was hardly good enough for an ambush, and to turn around now and find another path would waste precious time.

"There's a patrol of Northern soldiers ahead," she tells him. "Is there a way around them?"

"Along this road? No," Vale plants his hands on his hips and curses quietly. "And they will likely be guarding the road to intercept travellers. Merchants like to use this route because not a lot of machines occupy it."

It was true. The only machines Aloy had seen were Glinthawks in the sky above, too far for them to be detected. And there were Snapmaws in the rivers below. Aloy swore she saw another kind of machine down there as well, lurking in the deep water, but her Focus couldn't pick it up at such a far range. Any chance of running into machines would be Shell Walker or Behemoth convoys, which they had yet to come across.

"Are there any bridges or caves we can go through?" she asks.

"No, no bridges, but… wait," he snaps excitedly and turns to her. "There might be a way. I think there's a Cauldron here."

Aloy's eyes widen. "A Cauldron? Are you sure?"

"I'm certain. They're big triangular doors, right? A few Watchers guard the entrance. It's hidden in a crevice down the road," Vale explains.

"Cauldrons are usually hidden in mountains. It might be worth our time to explore it, if it'll allow me to override machines I've never seen before," Aloy ponders, nodding her head. "Show me where the entrance is. I can get us in there."

"Right. Follow me."

The trail starts to steep downhill and Aloy keeps her constricted bow in her hand, a metal bow taut on the bowstring ready to fire. She suspected that the Cauldron would be guarded by more than just Watchers. In fact if it was anything like the last time they tried to enter one, they would be facing a small force.

But as always they were prepared, and better equipped than last time. Aloy was eager to put her bow to use, having put some weave mods on its that increased its power and handling. It was much like her powershot bow; it already had the power and accuracy. She had been able to craft a new kind of arrow as well, something that could punch through the machine metal hides.

Vale had shown her when they camped out last night. Fire arrows were easy to make; they required a roll of linen and a bit of blaze. But the metal arrows offered a chance to really put the storm into the fire. Vale showed her how to make a flare – which required a sparker and some blaze, and a unique little metal vessel in the shape of a small cylinder with a vented lid on it. When he ignited the blaze with the sparker, the flames and heat escaped out the of the lid, bright enough to light up the area. Aloy watched in awe as the little vessel turned red from the heat and promptly melted into a puddle of molten metal.

Then he showed her how to apply this new tactic to her arrows. With the ventilation pointed towards the arrowhead, he wrapped the flare to the metal arrow shaft with wire. She could ignite the blaze by scraping the tip on her brace just like her normal fire arrows, but this flame was more lethal. It could burn through anything and do twice as much damage. Aloy was looking forward to seeing what it could do.

A large cavern appeared on the road not half an hour of walking later. There were still no signs of any Northern troops, but neither of them wanted to risk peaking ahead and they delved into the cave.

Aloy could see blue lights as soon as they entered. Around the bend, flashes of blue wave around the cave walls. The air was humid and water dripped down the walls of the cavern, reflecting the light of the machines. Out of the corner of her eyes they twinkled and played with Aloy's senses. She was _really_ starting to hate caves.

The two hunters peek around the corner and find what they're facing against; Watchers and four other kinds of machines she's never seen before.

"Redeye models," Vale whispers, the light on his Focus on. "And Nightcrawlers."

 _Nightcrawlers?_ Aloy peers over his shoulder and finds the machine that he's speaking of. A large body consisting of six legs walks around with two large components on its sides. Aloy gives it a quick scan with her a Focus and finds a battery cell on its underside. It's a little bigger than a Charger and there are four of them guarding the entrance to the Cauldron door, which is a small triangular door on the other side of the machines.

"Good thing I have my shield," Vale says and looks up at Aloy. "Ever fight a Nightcrawler before?" She shakes her head. "Stay behind me and wait for an opening. If we get our timing right we can take 'em down fast."

"I'm right behind you," Aloy whispers, her hands tight on her bow. Vale grabs his helmet and holds his shield forward.

Aloy shoots the Watchers in the eyes to kick things off, and they're down before the Nightcrawlers can spur into action. The huntress stays behind Vale as they advance forward. One of the machines raises the components on its sides and shoots.

But it's not like any missile Aloy has ever seen. A wad of some strange substance splatters on Vale's shield as he blocks it. It glows an eerie orange colour, and a thick line attaches it to the machine. Vale struggles as the machine pulls on the line with its pointed legs, dragging him closer.

"Aloy, take the shot!" he exclaims. She finds a place to strike in the machine's eye, destroying one lens with a metal arrow. The machine doesn't fall but it snaps the line and stumbles back.

Vale is tackled from the side as one of the machines jumps at him. He rolls back and kicks the machine off, rolling back up onto his feet and bringing his hammer weapon down on the machine's head, splitting it into pieces. Aloy sidesteps quickly as another machine spits its weird sticky substance at her and shoots her bow, landing an arrow in one of its legs. The machines jumps at her with legs spread wide, leaving the battery cell underneath exposed. She slides underneath it while firing an arrow and lands her shot perfectly, killing the machine with a single arrow.

Two more machines remain. Vale blocks a gob from the same projectile from one of the machines with his shield, performing a spin while whipping out his rope. The line flashes bright blue with electricity as he tosses it out, ensuring two of the machine's legs together. He gives the line a vicious yank and pulls the machine closer towards him, within striking distance and smashes its body with his hammer.

Aloy turns to face the last Nightcrawler, but she exchanges her bow for her spear instead. The machine spits at her but she jumps away and charges at the machine. The Nightcrawler lunges at her, but Aloy finds an elevated stone to jump off of and flies over the machine. She then twirls her spear and jabs the sharp end into its backside, twisting it and ripping apart wires. The machine jolts and jumps back as sparks fly from its body. She grabs a javelin from the stash on her back and throws it, nailing the machine right in the face. The tip of the weapon bursts into a cloud of icy mist and covers the machine's face with ice. Aloy quickly grabs her bow and fires a metal arrow while it's stunned. The arrow shatters the machine's metal head, practically making it explode on impact into a cloud of mist and metal dust. The last machine collapses to the ground in a shower of sparks, bringing them under darkness once again except for the faint glow of the door's electronic node.

"Let's see what this door is all about, shall we?" Aloy says as she reaches for her spear. Vale meets her at the door, looking up at it with hard concern.

"It doesn't look as big at the other ones…"

"It's a back door. The main entrance is probably somewhere else," she replies factually and casually puts her spear up against the node. As soon as the door opens, they both enter carefully with their weapons drawn.

A long corridor draws out in a slight bend. At the end is another door which reveals a large room where floating handling crates weave in a line and disappear behind a light wall. There are no other exits.

"I bet those crates go somewhere," Aloy says. "Let me see if I can get that shield down."

She searches for a node to hack, finding one along the far wall where the crates hover to. The node takes the shield down but leaves them without a way to reach the crates that hover well out of their reach.

"We can climb the wall there," Vale points to some odd round ledges on the wall that look perfect for climbing. Aloy traces the path with her eyes and follows it up the wall and across the ceiling where they can jump on top of the crates. She starts climbing, and within minutes she finds herself swinging onto the floating metal boxes, with Vale finding a way to pull himself up with his rope.

"These crates must go somewhere," Aloy mutters under her breath.

"These crates are full of something, some kind of liquid I've never seen before," Vale mentions, looking down at the crate with his Focus.

"It won't remain a mystery for long. The Cauldron probably uses it for something," she responds. The tunnel they drift through is long and narrow, forcing them to duck their heads. Blue panels of light brighten the tunnel for them, but there is is black metal walls and wire that snake down the sides. They fly for maybe ten minutes before Aloy spots a yellow light at the end of the tunnel.

The larger body of the Cauldron is revealed. Much like Cauldron Sigma, an enormous tunnel circles around the mountain's centre. A myriad of moving machine arms, components and crates can be seen throughout the foundry floor, and a few machines patrol the winding routes. The odd thing that looks out of place are the large pools of bright blue liquid all around. A large machine with three metal prongs dips into the pools and pulls back out. The machine has several large tubes and lines hooked into the back of it filled with the same blue substance that flows into the wall out of sight, further into the Cauldron.

"Is that chillwater?" Aloy asks.

"I'm not sure," Vale replies and catches the worried look she has giving. "Is that normal?"

"I definitely haven't seen that anywhere else. Cauldron Epsilon had something similar, but it didn't lead to anything good." She looks ahead of their path and finds the crates entering a large room and docking against the bay, meaning their trip was about to come to an end. When they stop at the docks, they jump off and escape past the large autonomous machines that pull the crates apart to reveal the contents inside. Tubes of the same blue liquid are stacked together neatly and are carefully pulled from the crate and emptied into a trough. Upon closer inspection, Aloy discovers that the liquid is hot. Extremely so, and she backs away from it.

"It hotter than an Oseram forge," Vale says, "that's been running all day."

 _This definitely can't be good for us._ "Looks dangerous. Better not get too close to it."

Aloy looks back across the main foundry for anything that might lead to the centre. A large tunnel forks off to their right and goes deeper into the mountain. She points at it so Vale can follow.

"That's where we have to go."

"Lots of machines in the way," Vale mentions, gazing down across the path to all the patrolling machines on the main floor. Aloy can spot them all: Watchers; Shell-Walkers and more Nightcrawlers. They couldn't fight them all, and if Hephaestus was watching them then they would be swarmed within minutes if they were detected. He probably already knew the second they went through the door.

Aloy takes another look around and finds a way around the machines. There was a second level higher up that they could navigate if they climbed around the equipment.

"I know a way. Follow," she tells him and makes her way towards the path. The large mechanical arms that are busy at work don't pay any attention to them as they approach. They pull machine parts from a conveyor belt and drill them onto a pod covered in armour. Once it's complete, the pod rolls back and disappears behind a door, giving them the opportunity to run across before they start building another pod.

Beyond that is a bridge that takes them across the gap that separates them from the farthest wall where they could climb. Handle bars and ledges glowing with yellow light align the ceiling all over the tunnel. They could navigate the entire tunnel that way, but Aloy doubted either of them could endure that with enough arm strength. As they cross, part of the wall in front of them opens up and a hovering machine appears from it, followed by more floating pods.

"We need to reach those crates," she grunts, picking up her pace. She had to be careful: one slip and she would fall three dozen feet.

The floating machine leads the pods to the lineup that's already moving. It's slow, which gives them time to catch up and drop down on top of them. The crates merge into the lineup and continue flying through the Cauldron, meanwhile Aloy searches for anything that might lead closer towards the Cauldron's heart. She spots a smaller tunnel that cuts into the wall, perfect for them to disappear into. When they pass by the next nearest platform, they leap the gap and find their way to the tunnel.

It's completely dark inside save for the few blue lights that illuminate their path and the light that pulses in the metal walls. The tunnel is straight, which means they can see the bright light at the end.

"I think we're close to the heart," Aloy says, giving their surroundings another scan. There's no machines near them and the signal from the core is stronger.

At the end of the tunnel they arrive at the heart. Three pylons stand around the centre and large circular energy field protects the machine being created inside. Aloy observes the machine from where they emerged from the tunnel. She doesn't recognize the machine… or machines at all.

"Three at once?" she murmured, confused. "How is that possible?"

The three machines that the Cauldron was weaving together were exact copies of each other: four legs; a tail and a pair of eyes with pointy horns on their heads. There were no unique components on them or any canisters on their bodies. In fact, they seemed kind of simple.

"The core will be underneath, same as last time," Aloy says. Vale already has his shield in his hands and he surveys the area with a grim expression.

"I thought there would be more to it than this. I don't like it." He glares at the machines as he says this. Aloy can't help but think the same thing when looking at them. The three machines stood in a circle inside the energy field, facing the centre as the building machine above them whirled around their heads.

"Let's take the shield down and deal with them quickly. We'll need to get out of here fast if we don't want to get spotted by Hephaestus," Aloy says and repels down from the platform. Vale starts planting traps around the area as she takes out the two Watchers out on patrol. She climbs up the pylon and lodges her spear into the node, waiting for the downloading process to end. When the node clicks and the energy shield drops, the three machines inside roar and start moving.

Vale shouts at them the get their attention, firing shots from his cannon. One of the machines crouches and leaps into the air towards him but he jumps out of the way. Aloy grabs her bow and starts firing metal arrows at the other two machines. One of them braces itself as a cannon appears on its back and starts firing at her. She jumps into cover behind one of the metal barriers surrounding the centre platform and grabs her blast sling. She lobs a few bombs as the machines try to get an angle on her, but she keeps them at bay.

Vale manages to push back the other machine with the others using the flames on his hammer. The machine already has a few scorch marks on its body from a couple of hits it took and jumps back as Vale swings. They were pushing them into the corner. This fight would be over quickly.

But then the machines start to move into a defensive position. One of the machines backs up as the other two get in front as they block the incoming bolt shots and arrows. The protected machine than starts to change shape as its limbs start to shift and metal parts move all at once. The two machines in front start to change their forms as well and back up to merge with the other machine. Parts click together and wires cross over each other as they form one bigger machine that comes to a stand on two legs, overshadowing both Aloy and Vale.

"That's new," Aloy quips. The newer, bigger machine charges at her at a speed she didn't think was possible for such a large beast.

She only avoids its massive heavy claws because Vale pushes her out of the way and she feels the air whip by from its strong swing at her. Vale fires a couple of shots, but they hardly make the machine flinch as it turns to face them. With another swing, it lunges at them with its claws but they both manage to step out of the way. While Vale backs away and fires more shots, Aloy goes to her Focus again, finding that the combined machines now have a weakness.

On the back of the machine, an energy vein connects all three machines together and glows with red energy. A few plates protect it, but with a couple of well-placed shots they could split them apart again and defeat them.

"Aim for the back!" Aloy shouts out. She grabs her blast sling and lobs a bomb while the machine's attention is still on Vale, landing a perfect hit on the machine's lower back. The large beast turns around and stomps towards her as a cannon sets on one of its arms. Aloy jumps behind some large equipment sitting near the walls of the foundry floor to escape that cannon shots. Metal shrapnel explodes behind her as she barely avoids getting hit, and she grabs her bow again to hit it with something that would knock those cannons off its arm.

While the machine's attention is on her, Vale comes up from behind and jumps onto the machine's back and clings to the plating as the larger being starts spinning around, trying to reach him with its big arms. With the machine distracted, Aloy waits for her chance to let loose her arrow, finding the right moment when Vale stuns the beast with a few shots from his shield cannon point-blank in the back of the neck. Her arrow sticks to the component and blows it right off the brackets. Like clock-work, Vale jumps off the machine, but not before placing a blast charge on the machine's back right along the spine. When the charge explodes, it shatters the armour and wires on the machine's back and forces it to fall apart. All three machines fall to the ground, all severely damaged with sparks jumping from their bodies.

Aloy runs to the fallen cannon before any of the machines can act. With a grunt she picks it up and aims and with several slow but heavy shots, destroys the machines one by one until the barrel of the cannon is glowing red hot and the robots are barely unrecognizable piles of scrap metal.

"A machine that combines with other machines…" Aloy murmurs, trying to understand the powers behind this new ability. "I've never seen anything like this before."

"Neither have I. They must be new," Vale replies as he mounts his shield on his back and points to the core as it rises from the ground. "You wanna do your thing so we can get out of here?"

"Yeah," Aloy gets up and finds her spear. When she plugs it into the core, she finds a bunch of information on other machines she's never seen before and software guideline codes the hack each of them. There's a large machine with a long nose and large ears, a machine that looks like the one they just fought – the larger version, and two more that look like big fish. They're identical, except that one of them has two split fins on the top while the other has only one. "Cauldron Foxtrot. This'll help me Override all the new machines in the area. There's got to be more Cauldrons in these lands with more data."

"Can we think about that later? I'd rather not linger here. Remember what happened last time?" Vale spoke up. Aloy nods. The download finishes and the platform around them starts rising into the air.

"Where do you think the main entrance is?" Aloy asks.

Vale shrugs. "I'm not sure. With any luck, somewhere where we can see the Spire. There's a shortcut through the mountains that I know of that not many people don't. If we can reach it, getting to the Spire will be a lot easier."

"What if the North soldiers are patrolling it?"

"They wouldn't bother. It's kind of… high up. You'll see."

Once the platform reaches the top, the large triangular door opens up for them. It's still bright out and a cold draft sweeps through the air and sparkles of snowflakes blow into the Cauldron. They were high up, near the snowy mountain peaks, but beyond the mountains the peaks drop down into smaller hills. Vale points up to the peak closest to them, where the peak is rounded out into a small flat plain at the top.

"We close. The trail ends around the other side of that peak."

"Then lead the way."

They had to trudge through thick snow to get to the trail that Vale knew about. If Aloy had known that it would be so high up she would have brought her winter furs. There was an ugly wind that whipped around them and bit into her cheeks and nose ears, but by now she was used to it and she would have to put up with it.

Aloy recognized the slim trail along the mountainside almost immediately when she spotted some man-made railing along the cliff made out of wood and machine wires. The path led up to a rocky crag that was climbable. Further up the trail the wind brushed up against the side of the path, but it was blocked by a large wooden wall that was big enough to act as a shack for them.

"Who built all this?" she asks. Behind the shack is a small pile of wood, ready to start a fire. Vale stops and stars down at the wood, as if contemplating where or not to start a campfire. But he looks back up at her.

"I did. After I found Minerva, I made trips back and forth between her and the other kingdoms. I didn't want to risk coming across Northern troops so I built the path up high."

"Not very convenient…"

"I think it's worth the trouble. Haven't run into a single soldier up here."

They continue without warming up. The path descends a little and comes to a large chunk of ice that arches over a gap. The ice gleams and glitters in the sunlight and it's beautiful to look at the formation as they come up to it. Aloy can't help but admit it.

Vale suddenly comes to a stop and falls to a crouch, signalling her to do the same thing. He's peering over the edge under the bridge of ice with a glare. Aloy crawls up next to him and tries to spot what he's looking at. It's not hard.

"Northern soldiers," Vale curses. Down below them, four soldiers in metal armour and lances walk through the snow. Aloy doesn't see any insignia's or crest that label their loyalty, but their armour is dark in colour with red highlights. "The hell are they doing up here?"

"What was that about not seeing any soldiers up here?"

The man sighs. "Shut up. This isn't good. The North must be digging into every corner of the land…"

Aloy pulls up the map from the Tallneck. The markers for the human convoys have moved. With the exception of the one right under them, there aren't any other convoys nearby, which she would have expected around the snowy peaks.

"Nothing shows on the map. They're probably just really bored with their normal routes," she says.

Vale shakes his head. "No, this path is too much trouble. They must have been sent here with good reason. And whatever it is, it's not good for us."

"When is it ever?"

"Come on. We're not too far from the end."

They cross the bridge of ice, which is plenty wide enough for them to walk on without fear of falling off. The wind makes it a little unsteady, pushing them to the side and teetering off the edge, but they make it. The path crosses to the other side of the mountain where the wind doesn't reach them and Aloy can see support beams that hold up the snow that's drifted over and the frozen lanterns hung from chains frozen into the ice walls. Without the howling wind, it's almost quiet the rest of the way.

As the path curves around the peak, Vale comes to a steady stop. There's more forest and green pine trees beyond the land below as the mountains grow smaller. Aloy's gaze trace the outline of the horizon until they come upon the most noticeable landmark; an outcropping on the hillside, maybe three miles away. There's a large building that stretches along the length of the hill into the trees, but the longer Aloy looks at it, the more she realizes that it's not just a old ruin.

It's the fallen Spire of Minerva.

And it's surrounded by campfire smoke and soldiers.

"No…" Vale gasps.

"Is that what I think it is?" Aloy asks, finding more and more lit campfires. They dotted the whole hillside, surrounding the fallen tower.

"The Northern army. They've captured the Spire."

* * *

So I want to apologize for the lack of an update. There's a combination of work, stress and health that have prevented me from writing and updating as often as I want to, but I managed to finally spellcheck this chapter before finally putting it up. I'm not sure when the next chapter will come, but I'd like to thank all my readers so far for bearing with me on this journey so far, your comments are so encouraging. I intend to finish this fanfic, cause I got a lot more planned for it.


	27. Side-The Missing River

**Side-The Missing River**

* * *

The two hunters backtracked to the Cauldron door and followed a small path back down the mountainside to get out of the freezing wind, and to figure out the next step in their plan.

The valley below had several trails and roads snaking through it, some partially covered in snow while others were barely visible through the tall trees that covered the side of the mountain. It made for a tense trip watching out for machines and human patrols, but Vale and Aloy dive through the trees until they make it to the bottom of the valley and find a small village called Vesta's Bottom. The community is small enough to remain undetected by the army on the other side of the mountain, but large enough that there are vendors and public spaces to explore. They consider restocking here.

As they enter the village, Aloy notices a mood set in with the people. They seem discouraged, scared even. A man dry heaves to the point of gagging and a few people nearby go to help him.

"Something's wrong with this village," she points out. Vale looks up from his unfocused gaze on the ground, playing with his Focus.

"How do you figure?"

"Look at the people. It's like they're all sick. Is it disease?" she wonders, briefly worried for their own health. Vale looks around the village and hums to himself.

"Maybe. There's something definitely wrong here."

Aloy watches as a man collapses on the side of the road. Two other people, friends or family, go to help him up. He's hardly strong enough to lift himself up and he coughs violently as he's picked up.

"We should look into it. These people are suffering," she decides. Vale nods, but doesn't miss the grimace that flashes across his face. She can tell that he's concerned with their own troubles. Of course getting to Minerva was their main objective, but with an army surrounding it and no plan to get around them, there wasn't much else they could do.

They walk around the village and asks for directions to the mayor's house. It's the biggest building sitting at the edge of town. There's a large garden at the front of the house as they approach it, with flowers and trimmed bushes framing it. But the bushes are whittled to the point of breaking and the flowers have withered away, drooping down the side of the pots they sit in. A lone man is crouched near the front of the house, gazing at more flowers that have gone bad. He stands as they approach him. He seems like a simple man, dressed in clothes with a decorated sash that stretches around his torso.

"You two must be travellers, or warriors… or both," he states, looking at both of them separately.

"We are. We saw the people suffering and wondered if there was anything we could do to help," Aloy replies. The mayor sighs the instant she stops talking, like he's heard those words before.

"You can look if you want, but nobody has been able to tell me what happened to Cold Man's Tears!"

"I'm sorry… what?" the huntress inquires after pausing for a moment to wonder if she heard him correctly.

"It's the name of the river that flows nearby. It's runoff from the mountains to the west. Bone-chilling water, fresh as it comes! Filtered through nature's own strainer," the mayor says proudly, but he loses his enthusiasm quickly. "But it dried up recently, and so suddenly. There's no other water source around here, and my people… well you said you saw it when you came through."

"Does anybody know why the river dried up so quickly?" Aloy asks.

"It _is_ the middle of drought season," Vale mutters, but the mayor shakes his head.

"No, this was unnatural. It dried up in less than two days! No river disappears like that!" he takes a breath to calm himself. Aloy could see that the health of his people and the well-being of the village was stressing him. "I've sent people to investigate, but they always come back without anything because the machines are too dangerous that way. And nobody worth their pride and skill would help a simple village like this. I'm afraid I'll have to force people to move away."

"Well today's your lucky day," Aloy replies. "Vale and I are good hunters. We can find out what happened to the river, and hopefully restore it so your people can have water again."

The mayor shakes his head. "I won't pretend I haven't heard that before, but I won't stop you from trying. You might want to start at the well on the other side of town. That's where we draw water from the river. That'll help you get started."

The two of them bade farewell to the mayor and leave for the other side of the village. They pass through the centre, coming across more sickly people and disease. It's Aloy's first instinct to reach out and help them, but she could easily contract whatever viruses infected them that came with an absence of water. She hated to ignore them, so she set her mind on finding an end to their plague.

The well is little more than a hole in the ground with a contraption that has a metal bucket tied to a rope and a spinning gear that lowers it into the depths of the well, which is so deep that Aloy can't see the bottom, even in broad daylight. She turns the gear and lowers the bucket into the well and then pulls it back up to see if there is anything in the bucket. All that comes up is mud, stuck to the bottom of the bucket.

"So there's no water, but the mud is still soggy…" Aloy mutters.

"The river should be nearby. The mayor says that the machines that way are dangerous. You ready for a fight?" Vale asks.

"Always, but how do you find a river if there's no water?"

"We'll find an empty trench and a bunch of deadly machines," he replies and turns to leave. "Come on. It's this way."

They leave the village heading east, back towards the mountain range. Now the sky was darkening, which would only add another layer of difficulty on this mission. Aloy secretly hoped to keep going through the night, but she was quite exhausted. They had been hiking up and down mountain paths all day, and if they were expecting to run into machines soon, they needed their strength and senses on full alert.

When Vale suggested they stop, she didn't argue. It would be another night in the wild, under the shelter of a low hanging tree in darkness. They both agreed that a campfire wasn't necessary, as it would attract attention. In the stillness of the night, they could hear the cries of machines echo in the air, so they both kept rotating watch throughout the night. Aloy almost wished they would wind up in a fight just so she could feel the thrill to keep her energy up.

"Careful what you wish for," she mutters to herself wistfully.

At the first signs of light they were moving again. They relied heavily on their Focuses to search for any machines while they trekked. Aloy expected to hear the sounds of running water soon, until she remembered that there _was_ no river. They came upon a wide, shallow gorge in the ground soon enough, with Snapmaws nearby.

"They can give anyone trouble," Vale says as he stares at them. "But they're not what I was thinking of."

"What were you thinking about?" Aloy asks.

"Something… deadlier."

"Vale."

"I don't think we'd find them here anyway. The waters would be too shallow," he points upstream towards the mountains, and in the direction of the machines. "River source is would be up the mountains. If we follow it long enough, we'll find the problem."

"What do you think it is?" she wonders. They start walking.

"I can think of a few things. I won't leave a landslide out of the question just yet. But we won't know for sure until we get further upriver."

Aloy taps her Focus to find the Snapmaw herd not so far away. They're directly in line with their path, but still far enough away that they can't detect them, and there aren't any other machines nearby.

The empty trench leads across the valley floor and back up the mountains to the west. Along the way, the two hunters keep finding machines on the riverbed, bigger machines that would have challenged any well-trained machine hunter. When the village mayor said that the machines would be dangerous this way, this was exactly what Aloy would expect. They used caution, and kept to the bush when they needed to sneak between groups.

Fortunately, they only needed to fight once. Two Sawtooths stood in their way just as they reached the bottom of the mountain slope and they needed to be dealt with before they could ascend. With Vale's fire hammer and Aloy's fire arrows, the two machines were dealt with rather quickly. Looking around them as they began to climb, Aloy started to wonder why the river had disappeared again.

"The land is pretty dry for a mudslide," she comments on.

"Yeah, and there's no rocks from a landfall either. I wonder what it could be," Vale replies. Aloy goes through some files in her Focus as they walk. The data from the override in Cauldron Foxtrot shows her data for all sorts of new machines, some she's never seen before. An image pops up before her, displaying a machine with big arms. _Huge_ arms.

"Vale, what kind of machines live in your lands?" she asks.

"All kinds. Striders, Scrappers..." Vale answers, but she shakes her head.

"No, I mean, any that I wouldn't be familiar with? Machines that don't appear in the Sundom?" she says. A look of realization comes across Vale's face and he nods.

"Plenty. You saw the Shadow Jumper statue at the inn when we first got here, right? There's that. There's also Water Razors, Service Pups, Quakers. Better hope you don't meet a Quaker. I can't image what they're like with the Derangement affecting them."

A _Quaker_ sounded a lot like the machine that she was observing through her Focus in that moment. Its fists were the size of _her_.

"Right. I'll keep that in mind."

"I guess the world has Wyverns now, too," Vale adds. "You think a machine caused the river to disappear?"

"Maybe not quite a machine…" she replies. It leaves Vale with a confused look, so she continues. "I remember in the Cut a river had disappeared once, and there was a facility that the Old Ones had built that controlled the flow of water. It might be something like that."

"We'll know when we get there."

They climbed for several more minutes, becoming ever more weary the more they climbed. The mountains weren't that much of a challenge for Aloy, having grown up high in the mountains and having to take the path up and down to hunt and train almost every day. But with the sun bearing down on them and the cold wind picking up, she was beginning to get hot and cold flashes, making her uncomfortable and irritated.

When they reach a flat slope by mid-day, they find a large plateau and a deep sink that might have been a lake once. It surrounded by tall pine trees and a few machines sit near the edge on the other side from where they stand.

"The lake is gone too? How?" Aloy says.

"I'm not sure, but the river continues on the other side," Vale replies. Aloy eyes up the machines—a couple of Striders and a Longleg as their Shepard. Another object lights up, buried in the damp soil in the middle of the herd, unrecognizable to the Focus.

"What is that device, in the ground there?" she points out.

"You see something?" Vale asks.

"Yeah. We need to kill those machines first," Aloy replies as she grabs her bow.

The Striders don't flee like she anticipates when the fight starts. They paw the ground like an angry boar and charge at them from multiple directions. Vale gets ran over once, but he's wearing enough armour and his shield protects him from the metal hooves of a Strider. But the battle is still drawn out with the Longleg jumping at them constantly.

When they're finally dealt with and brush the dust of themselves, Aloy walks up to the unknown device. There's a large disc shape that sits flat with the ground with a short rod sticking straight up through the middle of it. The base of the rod is covered with several tiny wires standing up on their own, and a red light blinks on and off on top of the rod.

"What is this?" she wonders.

"Doesn't look dangerous, but I'd still be careful. It might attract machines," Vale warns. Aloy knows to be careful, but she didn't think this strange knew metal thing worked like a lure. She scans it with her Focus and a short wall of text comes up:

 _3039/07/12. 23:45:24._

 _Function: Water purification test node 2–exposed._

 _Treatment test results:/98% purified. 1.57% lead compound-0.43% hydroperoxide._

 _23:45:38. Test node 3–pending…_

 _23:46:40. Test node 4–pending…_

 _23:47:56. Test node 5–pending…_

 _23:49:02. Hydrofacility lockup process initiated. Echo trackers for missing test nodes active. Tracing nodes…_

Aloy looks over the information again. There are coordinates to the hydrofacility that she inputs to her Focus… and it's not very far away. A distance marker shows up on her HUD, appearing further upriver.

"I know where to go. Follow," she says and continues up the empty trench.

The wind has a bite to it. They climb further uphill as flakes of snow start to fall from the sky. They're getting closer to the mountain tops, but Aloy hopes that they don't have to go any further into frigid temperatures without her winter furs.

They scale a jagged cliff of about twenty feet before coming upon an amazing sight. The river trench continues up into a large structure. Its dark, massive silhouette highlights the blue lights that shine all around it, suggesting its Gaia-built origins. Near the bottom, where the river should have been, are three triangular entrances that are sealed shut with lights shining down on them. There are two other entrances on either side of the facility up on the banks of the river, but they're shut as well, and a large platform leads right up to them with machines guarding them.

"I think we found our problem," Aloy says as she comes to a halt.

"What is it?" Vale asks.

"I don't know." She points to the gates at the bottom of the river. "Those doors might be where the water comes from. We have to get them open to release the water."

Vale scans the large facility with keening eyes. "Don't think we can do that from here. We have to go inside."

"Which means we have to get past those machines."

"Right."

A couple of Redeye Watchers and a Sawtooth protect the entrance. Both hunters lie in the snowflake-peppered trees nearby, waiting for their chance. Aloy lights a flame arrow and pulls the bowstring back to full strength. When the Sawtooth nears one of the Watchers, she releases it and splits the metal plating covering the blaze canister on the Sawtooth. Once the ensuing explosion goes off and kills the bigger machines, they pick off the small ones easily before coming up to the mysterious structure. Just like the Cauldrons, there's a node at the bottom of the door that Aloy hacks with her spear. Ready for anything, they both step inside.

It's nothing like Aloy expects. The first thing she hears is running water. Loud rushing water. She spots a large pool in front of her, where the water is constantly stirring and a large pipe sticking down into it from the ceiling. She can see through the clear screening in the tube that water is shooting down. That means water is coming from above.

All around them are auto-machines with mechanical arms that work here and there, connecting tubes to machines and switching equipment to pump another liquid of some sort. It's not water, but glows bright green and swishes around in the container it's in. Eventually it drains at the bottom and starts filling at the top again with water and the same green substance, only it's thicker. It thins out as soon as it starts mixing with the water.

"What do you think that is?" Aloy speaks, partly mesmerized by the foreign substance. Vale studies it for a short second before he answers.

"Looks like energyoil."

"What's that?"

"A rare kind of oil. It's got all sorts of purposes, but I know a weaponsmith that uses it for some of his mechanical equipment. It burns away eventually so he always needs more." He stares at the pool of swirling oil before he adds; "my shield runs off of some energyoil."

"It does?"

"Yeah. All the moving parts need lubrication to keep them from rusting. The weaponsmith I mentioned helped me make it." He then turns back to face the rest of the facility. "So how do we get the water running to the river?"

Aloy looks around, activating her Focus to point out anything important. Above them, a huge piece of machinery is lit up. A marker labels it as a 'Multi-Valve'. She knows that the Old Ones used valves to control the flow of substances like water through pipes, like the old dam in the Cut. It's their best bet to check it out.

"Above us. I think there's a second level to this place. We need to find a way to get up there," she explains. She looks around for any platforms to jump up to, walls to climb, but it seems that there's no way up. She knows better than to try and blow a hole in the ceiling with one of Vale's charges. Gaia's facilities were built to withstand anything.

Aloy turns her attention back to the large pool with the pipe feeding down into it. The pipe has components and wires running down it, and by observing it with her Focus, she discovers that those wires run up the tube, along the ceiling and down to an access panel on the wall that she can reach. Upon approach, she finds a hologram pop up with many shapes arranged into three rings.

"It's some sort of puzzle," she says.

"But how do you solve the puzzle?"

"I think…" Aloy waves her hand at the rings and they move. The shapes along the ring shift. She notices that some of them match. "Aha! It works just like a holo lock. You have to line up the symbols with each other."

When she lines up the shapes, the hologram lights up green and the water comes to a slow stop in the tube.

"Okay. Now what?" Vale inquires.

"Can we drain the water? Or move that pipe? There's gotta be another switch somewhere." Aloy looks around with her Focus. There's a device that lights up near the edge of the pool. It connects to the pipe in the pool and is labeled 'current control'. That had to be it. But going up to the device, she found that there was no power to it, and she couldn't locate the missing link.

"This device needs power. There's got to be a cable linked somewhere," she mutters.

"What?"

"Find a way to get this thing powered. We do that, we can drain the water and climb the pipe to the floor above us."

"Up through the pipe? There's not another way?" Vale asks.

"Not unless you can see something with your Focus," Aloy snips. Vale observes their surroundings. His attention draws to a large section of the wall that stands out. It's protected by metal panels, but Aloy can see a lip between the seams in the plating. They could wedge something in there and pull the shell back.

"There's a power conduit running through here that links to that device. I can bust it open and take a look," he offers.

"Don't break anything," Aloy says, but the man is already reaching for his hammer. With a few good swings, the metal cover fly off and Vale gets up close to the electrical that's inside. There's a large port in the middle with three outlets. One of them is shredded, silver wire exposed from beneath a cobalt coating.

"These wires look like they've been gnawed on," he states.

"Rats?" Aloy guesses incredulously.

"It's possible. I can reconnect them…" Vale plays with the wires, his gloves protecting him from voltage when he brings the wires together and they spark. A few seconds later, the light on the device by the edge of the pool turns blue. "Got it!"

"So now we activate this…" Aloy puts her spear up to the device, and as soon as it clicks the large pipe starts to rise out of the water, revealing another, smaller tube. "There. Ready to swim, Vale?"

"I should have seen this coming…" Vale replies, looking down at the water. Aloy makes sure all her weapons are holstered before diving in. The water is cool and comfortable and the two swim for the pipe in the middle. There are harnesses and devices attached to it that allow them to climb up. It's a tall climb, but they come out in an even larger room. Six different pipes, about as big as Aloy herself, are all connected to a large device in the centre, the multi-valve. At the end of each pipe is a large apparatus and above them is a platform with a node on it.

"Does that thing control the water?" Vale wonders aloud.

"I think so. And those arms over there control flow from the pipes," Aloy studies the large engine. One of the six pipes is larger, and points straight into the ground. "We should figure out how to get water flowing through the bigger pipe. I'll go above and see what we can do."

Vale nods and climbs up to the top of the valve while Aloy finds a way to the platform. There's some ledges on the other side that she can climb, past some more machinery, including a large turbine pointed directly at the valve. It's not moving, but it's connected to a node that glows red. When she activates it with her spear, the turbine starts rotating.

"Hey, whatever you did, the water's flowing now!" Vale shouts. Aloy gets up to the platform and finds that water is flowing from one of the pipes – through the valve – out through another pipe. It's not where she wants the water to go.

"Try moving those arms," she calls out. Vale takes a look at the big complicated mechanism before he shrugs and waves his arms.

"Which one?"

Aloy point to the one on the far right. "That one!"

The mercenary struggles with the valve for only a minute before he was able to push it. A loud hiss becomes audible from the pipes as the water starts flowing into another pipe, but it's not the right one. Aloy observes the machine closer. Four of the pipes from the multi-valve go into the four walls of the room, with another going into the ground and the sixth pipe coming from under the platform she stood on, where the water came from. They needed to get water flowing into the large pipe by turning the valves. A simple puzzle that needed communication.

Once Aloy directs Vale to turn the corrects valves, water is flowing into the ground and a signal begins beeping. Large doors open up from either side of the room, opening to the outside.

"You think that noise means anything?" Vale questions once they regroup on the floor.

"It means be ready for a fight," Aloy answers. She has to block the sunlight with her palm as they exit the facility because it's so much brighter than inside and it takes a few minutes for her eyes to adjust. Looking around with her Focus, Aloy can see machine figures prowling around below them. Two Sawtooths and a Stalker.

It's an easy fight with the high ground to their advantage. Without a long range attack, the Sawtooths watch helplessly as Aloy lobs blast bombs at them and the Stalker can't do a thing against Vale's shield as he fires the shocker from his hammer. When they're dealt with, the two hunters climb down and return to the river canal, which is flowing with water again from the flood gates from the facility.

"We should return to that village and let him know he'll have water again soon," Vale suggests. Aloy nods.

"Right, and all those people will hopefully be able to recover from their illness. And then we can focus on how to get to the Spire and find Minerva."

"About that…" Aloy turns her head and looks up at Vale curiously. "I think I know what to do about that."

Aloy can hear the disappointment in his voice. "You do?"

"Yeah. I was thinking about it last night. We can't get past that army without a fight. And if what Chesser told us is true, their strength will be bolstered by machines. There's really only one thing to do. We have to go back to Central."

"Go back? After what we just did?" Aloy exclaims. "Assuming they don't arrest us, what is it that we need to ask if them?"

Vale folds his arms. "To move their armies forward and push the North back. Basically, we'll be asking them to start a war."

* * *

I'm back with an update! I'm very sorry for the wait and thank you to everyone who has remained to keep reading this fanfic. It was a stressful and hard couple of months, but I managed to finish up a new chapter for you guys. Hopefully the next one won't take as long but I'm still working very hard in my personal life to get things under control. I hope everyone had some great holidays and I'll see you in the next update soon!

* * *

Update: So sorry guys. See my detailed update where I cross-posted this fanfic over on Archive of Our Own, under the same name. A sad departure, but an unexpected gift, awaits you.


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